Observations from Washington

I just spent the last few days in D.C. for vacation and saw how some of the area's famous venues are addressing some marketing challenges, particularly the high cost of printing.

The Smithsonian

The first day in town we picked up a guide that includes not just one museum's information, but info for all of the Smithsonian members.  In one saddle-stitched booklet I got great info for Air and Space, American History, the National Portrait Gallery and all the rest.  I found myself holding on to it, then using it at night to plan some of our next day's touring.  

The Smithsonian may find this a little easier to coordinate because all the museums are under one brand, but it occurs to me that any geographic area with multiple arts/tourist destinations might benefit from a combined booklet that summarized the offerings.  Certainly there are potential print savings from multiple organizations pooling their quantities into one piece.  Meanwhile each organization benefits from the cross promotion a booklet like this could offer.

The National Gallery

At the National Gallery, the only museum on the mall which is not part of the Smithsonian, they have an eco-friendly/budget-friendly alternative to gallery guides.  For information about the works or the artists there were 8.5 x 11 handheld guides for each gallery which were laminated and mounted on 1/2 inch hardboard.  A wall-mounted rack housed the guides and interested patrons could pick up the information on for instance Manet, then return it when finished.  The heavy duty pieces probably make it through thousands of readers before they need to be re-laminiated.  No paper wasted, no printing costs.  In fact the only readily available printed piece was the gallery map itself.

The National Zoo

The folks at the National Zoo seem to be on a similar reduced-paper plan.  Printed maps were available for the public but for a $2 fee.  Most visitors seemed to favor the mounted maps available at every major intersection in the park.  In fact I think I observed more people buying maps as they left the park, than using the maps inside.  With a little more promotion I'm guessing they could have sold even more as souvenirs.  Maybe a rolled version in a takeaway tube could have done the trick