Brook and Charlie arguably are as cute as Mickey Mouse, and when the California sea otters are frolicking in their tank at the Aquarium of the Pacific, they're athletic enough to give Shamu a run for the money.
But while Disneyland and Sea World readily enlist their lovable mouse and killer whale to keep turnstiles spinning, the Long Beach aquarium is sticking with an advertising policy that prohibits marketers from turning its animals into advertising icons.
"We want our advertising to showcase our animals because they are beautiful, entertaining and enticing," said Michele Nachum, the aquarium's director of public relations. "But we won't ever anthropomorphize our animals. You'll never see them talking in an ad or anything like that."
Nonprofit zoos and aquariums say self-imposed marketing rules are necessary to protect the integrity of institutions whose first goal is education and scientific research. And as they go up against some of the world's savviest marketers, nonprofits such as the Long Beach aquarium face a funding crunch. The year-old facility will spend $1 million this year on marketing, but that's a drop in the bucket compared with such deep-pocketed rivals as Universal Studios Inc., which will spend $60 million to promote Islands of Adventure, its new attraction in Orlando, Fla.
So, as government funding dries up and competition for consumers' attention escalates, nonprofit institutions are turning to marketing tactics long used by for-profit competitors.
Increasingly, they are relying on advertising jingles and humor to catch consumers' eyes and ears. "They're more likely to tell about a zoo's virtues in a clever way," said Bob Ramin, director of marketing and development for the American Zoo and Aquarium Assn. in Silver Spring, Md. "And that, after all, is what advertising is all about. Look at the Denver Zoo's wonderful tag line--'We're serious fun.' That says it all."
Facilities that once viewed advertising with disdain now recognize that "we have to position ourselves as something that's fun, something that can compete with the Knott's and Disneys of the world," said Laurie Whelan-Martinez, the Long Beach aquarium's marketing director.
"To be successful, we have to position ourselves as an attraction, not just as a museum," she says.
Farida Fotouhi, co-founder of a Culver City agency that has produced advertising for the aquarium, says nonprofit attractions can produce catchy advertising without alienating purists.
