The Smithsonian Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, located in Washington D.C., is soon introducing a new exhibition of newly-discovered Indian paintings entitled: “Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur”. In their effort to attract a younger and wider audience they have turned to bluetooth marketing.

From the press release:

A message from the Smithsonian will appear on pedestrians’ mobile screens, and those who accept the message will receive a detail of the bus shelter advertisement and a message urging them to visit the featured exhibition, “Garden and Cosmos.” This advertisement magnifies the eyes of a Nath Yogi from the exhibition and gives users the opportunity to use the artwork as wallpaper for their mobile devices.

It's good to see that galleries and museums are picking up on bluetooth marketing around the world, though I must admit I am always a bit disappointed when I see it is only content-push services that are being used. I always say that interactive services, have a lot more to offer to end users and thus have much greater potential.

On-demand information about exhibits, in a rich multimedia format, context-based and location-based services, such as providing information relative to the order in which exhibits were viewed, timely delivery of extra information when required, live comments on exhibits from viewers, are just some of the ideas that spring to mind when thinking about how the visitor experience could truly be enhanced in places like these.

I realise a lot of bluetooth proximity marketing and mobile marketing solutions don't have such capabilities, and I know that mobile marketers often have ideas that the systems they select simply don't allow them to implement. However, I also know that if they were to look a bit harder, they would find a number of available systems that can offer these and much more. (I have already listed some in previous articles, I don't want to keep repeating them -- I am not getting paid to advertise them!)

There are so many ideas, just asking to be implemented as new, innovative services that really have the potential to change the way people do and enjoy things. It's a bet to be won, however, whether these will actually be implemented before the medium is depreciated by advertising spam, and people just leave their Bluetooth turned off all the time.