The AR app “Tintoretto2Go” allows users to turn thousands of seemingly-inconspicuous poster ads in Cologne and Berlin into real works of digital art. These ads are brought to life when viewed through our app on a smartphone and offer completely new perspectives on four exhibition highlights. Through animations, sounds and interactions, the app turns people’s smartphones into “artphones” giving them unique access to the art world.

Stories of four chosen paintings were exhibited around Berlin and Cologne on billboards. After the download, the app automatically detected places with the hidden information and replaced advertising with art. The campaign was aired on the 1th of September and ended with the closing of the Tintoretto exhibition in Germany on the 28th of February.

The campaign ran parallel to the exhibition from the beginning of October to January 2018. A total of 99,062 visitors found their way into the museum exceeding all expectations: “We are very pleased about the enthusiasm with which our Tintoretto exhibition was received by such a broad audience.

The spectrum ranged from young people interested in art to avid Tintoretto lovers to experienced specialists from all over the world”, said Museum Director Marcus Dekiert. And we’re happy that we were able to contribute to this success during the campaign with +19% online purchases of tickets after the download of the app.

The most direct way to get the attention of this target group is via their smartphones. That’s why we took four exhibition highlights from the museum and brought them to the streets with the AR app “Tintoretto2Go”. When viewed through a smartphone, seemingly inconspicuous poster ads in Cologne and Berlin turned into real works of art brought to life by animations and sounds, which users could then interact with and explore from completely new perspectives.

Whoever finds their way into the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, can journey through 700 years of art history: from one of the world’s most important collections of medieval painting to highlights of the Baroque period with paintings by Rubens and Rembrandt, on to works by van Gogh, Cézanne and Munch which introduce contemporary art. But the treasures this museum holds and displays are almost irrelevant if no one comes to see them making the pressure to innovate extremely high. In 2017, a unique opportunity to get people interested in art and back in the museum presented itself with the first-class exhibition “Tintoretto – A Star was Born” for the artists’ 500th birthday.

We were briefed to develop a campaign to motivate the younger generation to visit the museum.