After a few days of inactivity (thanks to some pretty pushing deadlines at work), I've come up with a piece of news about a bluetooth marketing campaign in Austria. The mobile element was part of a general marketing campaign in Vienna:

Epamedia, Austria’s largest public space company created that platform throughout the entire city of Vienna. The main protagonist: a small statue, only 11 cm tall. Her name: The Venus of Willendorf. It’s only 100 years ago that this 25.000 year old lady was discovered in the remote hills of Wachau, Austria’s arguably most beautiful wine region. The little historical relique has been displayed in the Natural History Museum of Vienna and has fallen into oblivion ever since.

It is interesting to see that mobile and proximity marketing can be used for a number of different events and in diverse settings. In this case, the art exhibition invited people to participate interactively in re-exploring this exhibit using their mobile phone. From the blog post:

We also added applications to the media, testing the society’s willingness to receive our message. We gave away museum tickets, offered information download on the statue and a little mobile phone game. The use of SMS, Bluetooth, image recognition and QR code technology was applied and tested.

The results of the campaign proved our expectations right. Over 20% of people downloaded the bluetooth game. Hundreds of people downloaded the QR code reader, double as much used the scanner to read more about the figurine. While the use of image recognition wasn’t high, it still showed that there are many people out there interested to pull information from an advertising board.

I think art exhibitions and events have real potential for mobile interactive services, because by their very nature such cultural events are more enjoyable for the visitors when they are also given a chance to participate in the experience and interact in some way. The mobile phone is an ideal platform to enable this, as it combines the privacy, directness and new technology for an immersing experience.

Interactive electronic guides in museums are the obvious application, but there are more. I am not just talking about museums, but also galleries, concerts, the theatre, the ballet, and everything art, really. The visitors are already interested in the event, and it is an excellent point of opportunity to approach this public, if it falls within your target audience.