Aquarium launches turtle marketing campaign

Attention, turtle nerds. Here's a contest you may want to check out.

To boost attendance during school vacation week and spotlight a program dubbed "Turtles Uncovered - Get Beneath the Shell," the New England Aquarium has launched a new marketing campaign titled "Where Do You See Turtles?" Created by Mullen, a Wenham-based ad agency, the competition includes an online photo contest that invites participants to submit unorthodox images of the "lovable reptiles" through Jan. 9, an aquarium press release said.

The grand prize? An opportunity to meet and feed Myrtle, the aquarium's 560-pound sea turtle. (To view some turtle images and see contest rules, please log on to the aquarium's website at www.neaq.org.)

When it comes to marketing, aquariums would seem to have it tougher than zoos. Folks will line up to goggle and peer at pandas and polar bears. And who wouldn't want to visit Little Joe the gorilla, the rough-and-tumble escape artist at the Franklin Park Zoo. Much like the famous Koko, a gorilla schooled in sign language by a Stanford University professor, Dorchester's signature ape can understand some commands that zoo keepers signal to him with their mitts - though, admittedly, Joe's vocabulary isn't nearly as extensive as the one at the fingertips of the erudite Koko. (Alas, when your intrepid correspondent visited the multi-talented Joe in his new multi-million dollar habitat, the fuzzy galoot was in full snooze mode, much to the dismay of children who yearned to see him jump and frisk.)

In any case, it would seem to be quite the marketing challenge to make fish lovable - or at least interesting and scary enough to prompt a visit to the aquarium. After all, it's tough to get passionate about tuna - except perhaps as a menu component of a sushi entree.

But such a daunting task hasn't stopped the creative types at Mullen. Last summer, an aquarium marketing effort featured local taxis topped with shark fins and a print ad of the Hatch Shell rimmed with giant shark teeth.

Now the aquarium's marketing push has evolved from sharks to turtles - and to turtle photo contests. Looking to fire up imaginations and tout what it calls its "outstanding collection of sea turtles," the campaign includes photos of water droplets and rock formations. On closer inspection, these images form the shapes of turtles.

A press release from the aquarium included a quote from Drayton Martin, a senior vice president and a group account director at Mullen.

“The campaign creates an element of surprise around the familiar and likeable sea turtle,” Martin said. “We’re trying to get people to pause a moment and think that there may be more to learn about these popular and intriguing sea creatures. We want them to smile when they see the ads and consider a trip to the aquarium to view the turtles in new and different ways.”

In a statement of her own, Jane Wolfson, the aquarium’s vice president of marketing and communications, added, “We are excited to use this advertising campaign as another way to connect Bostonians and visitors to the aquarium's efforts to make sea life part of all of our daily lives."

Print and online ads for the turtle campaign are running in The Boston Globe and on Boston.com, Mullen said, and there are also ads posted at such MBTA stops as Park Street, South Station, and Harvard Square; spots are also airing on such radio stations as WXKS, WBMX, and WODS.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)