The New Museum of Contemporary Art rejected countless marketing ideas from Wolff Olins and the ad agency Droga5. Five that were nixed:

IDEA (Wolff Olins): Have a small speaker playing a recording that announces the names of lead donors.
REASON REJECTED: Could be mistaken for a sound-art installation.

IDEA (Wolff Olins): Staffers would sport bright sashes with the museum’s logo to identify themselves.
REASON REJECTED: Too “retail.”

IDEA (Wolff Olins): Drop Museum of Contemporary Art from official name to focus on the term New.
REASON REJECTED: Too confusing (though the institution has adopted New Museum as an official nickname).

IDEA (Droga5): Cut a silhouette of the building, which looks like an uneven stack of tofu, out of a billboard to let the sky show through.
REASON REJECTED: Too expensive.

IDEA (Droga5): Commission artists to sculpt refrigerators in the shape of the building as an homage to the neighborhood’s history as a restaurant-supply district.
REASON REJECTED: Not worth the trouble.