Volume 3, No. 17. September 12,2003
AZA Report
Shark
pod
Do it right, do
it big. That meant doing it together.
When the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago opened the $47 million Wild Reef:
Sharks at Shedd on April 15—only the second expansion in its 93-year history—President
and CEO Ted Beattie wanted an all-out opening event and a big-buzz-creating
publicity campaign. In an AZA Conference seminar this week, Shedd officials
and their guests shared with other zoo and aquarium marketers and operators
how they carried off the major news event of the year for Chicago and one of
the top feature stories of the nation for that month.
Tantamount to all individual efforts was the work of the Launch Team comprising
representatives from each of the aquarium’s departments. Similarly, the
whole marketing effort intimately involved not just the marketing and public
relations team and their contracted agencies but also the other departments
within the aquarium, from animal care to education volunteers. This wasn’t
cursory “tell them what you’re doing” type of outreach, either.
Everybody was in the loop from the beginning, two years out from the Wild Reef’s
scheduled opening date.
Representatives from the Shedd’s PR firm, Public Communications, Incorporated,
and from the advertising agency, Chicago Creative Partnerships, attended exhibit
planning meetings. Such was the devotion of these team players that Jill Allread
of Public Communications, Incorporated, and Brad Most of Chicago Creative Partnership
joined the Shedd staff in the panel discussion in Columbus, Ohio, Sunday, giving
up their weekend family plans to do so.
Curators and volunteer staff from throughout the aquarium received continuous
training and updates on the developing exhibit and its animal residents. This
served two purposes: the staff could talk up the coming exhibit, and they could
answer the questions that would inevitably come from guests at the aquarium.
What made those questions inevitable were the visual hints Shedd’s creative
team built to tell the city that something 27,000-square-feet big (2,601 square
meters) was coming. Fifteen shark dorsal fins showed up in exhibits throughout
the aquarium; even the humpback whale sculpture hanging above the cafe atrium
sported a foam core fin bearing the legend “Coming in Spring” and
fastened on a belt around the whale’s belly. Later, three shark fins appeared
on the Shedd’s domed roof. “That was an architectural feat,”
said Bert Vescolani, vice president of aquarium collections and education. “They
were on a roof, in ‘The Windy City,’ and they’re balloons and
could act like kites. We had to bring structural engineers in to make sure they
were anchored safely.”
Shedd extended these partnerships beyond its own self. The aquarium teamed up
with the Chicago Art Institute to project a 50-story image on the 310 South
Michigan Avenue building across the street from the Art Institute. The projection
featured a picture of the shark from below—already being widely displayed
as the Wild Reef’s logo in advertisements and literature—and “Sharks
at Shedd” scrolling along the bottom. The projection towered over the annual
Taste of Chicago festival and could be seen from tour boats on Lake Michigan.
Because the Shedd sits on city park district land, the aquarium partners with
the city park district on education and outreach programs. For Wild Reef, the
Shedd called on these children campers to participate in the opening day ceremonies.
The aquarium also got permission to place 10 decals representing various species
in the Wild Reef exhibit on major artery sidewalks leading up to the aquarium.
Using an adhesive back to stick to the pavement, the seals were, perhaps the
most popular promotional stunt of all. “We knew we had done a good job
because people were stealing them and in some cases putting them on their cars,”
said Amy Ritter, the Shedd’s vice president of marketing and public relations.
“They were cool, really cool. They disappeared fast.”
THE LOOP is written and produced by Eric Minton, Minton Enterprises, LLC. To see more examples of Eric Minton's work and Minton Enterprises services, visit www.ericminton.com.
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