Kathleen lhorne

Baton Rouge ZOO

My role: account executive, research, strategy, design  
 

Problem

As the Baton Rouge Zoo moves into the late maturity stage, the zoo faces a critical problem with reestablishing a positive brand association as well as a strong connection with the community. My team of 15 were asked to solve these issues by creating a year long advertising campaign in a semester. 
 

Key Insight

According to our research, we discovered about 10% of middle-class women are more likely to visit the zoo for recreation each month than any other age group. Aside from recreation, our survey and focus group participants also mentioned the desire to witness more hands-on, interactive and educational encounters at the zoo. Environment was another concern mentioned by survey and focus group participants. They stated that efforts to save the environment while also having close contact with the animals were an important factor. This lead us to consider a target market primarily of women between the ages of 21-35 with at least one child living in the Baton Rouge area. In addition, a secondary target market was also examined. This group consisted of young professionals who are seeking unique events along with concerns about the ethical dilemma zoos create.    

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Solution

With community, education, conservation, and the environment in mind, my team's proposal focused on a fresh creative strategy to hit our primary and secondary target audience. After testing different concepts with several focus groups, we concluded that our audience identified most with the idea of zoo keepers playing the role of a hero by their efforts in caring for our animals. Since the zoo keepers are the backbone of the Baton Rouge Zoo, participants stated this concept will help inform and change the existing perception of the zoo as well as create a huge impact in the conservation of animals. We determined this would be achieved by using mainly outdoor, online, print, and radio platforms. A tagline, “B R Hero,” would be implemented throughout various messages. Primarily, traditional advertisements would consist of radio, outdoor billboards, and magazine print advertisements to remind consumers to be a hero in the community just as the zoo keepers are with the Baton Rouge Zoo's animals. Secondly, social media efforts such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook would allow the target audience interaction with the brand and offer the chance to incorporate guerrilla-marketing tactics. Some of these efforts include stencil chalk advertising around different areas of Baton Rouge as well as eco-friendly safari packs used to meet our goal of reestablishing the community and conservation with our animals and the environment. For budget allocation, we recommended 35% of the budget to outdoor, 11.1% to social media, 10.7% to print, and 19.8% to radio. We suggested the remainder 23.4% of the budget allocation to integrated marketing communications efforts and online. 

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