How do you regain, and then surpass, the success your business once had?
That was the question that weighed heavily on the mind of L. Patricia Simmons, president and CEO of the Akron Zoological Park, in the late 1990s.
“When you’re (a smaller organization), you have to decide what you really want to consider your greatest strengths,” she says.
Helped financially by a 2000 tax levy and private donations, the zoo is experiencing record attendance, and its “You’ve Never Been This Close” campaign last year won the MarCom Creative Award, honoring excellence and creativity by marketing and communication professionals.
Smart Business spoke with Simmons about how she took a business approach to rebrand her organization and how that’s benefited the zoo.
How did you know it was time to change the zoo’s image?
People weren’t coming. We had to look seriously at if we wanted to remain a professional AZA (American Zoo and Aquarium Association)-accredited zoo, or if we wanted to start going backward.
We had had steady growth up to that point, but we had hit a plateau. We knew we needed to become aggressive and take the next step, or we were going to go backward. The question became, ‘Did we have a product this community wanted or not?’
How did you determine that?
We never once felt we were wise enough to know what our community wanted from us, so we decided to ask them.
We have a long-term seasoned staff here, and they had a good idea of the kind of questions that we should be asking. We brought in what we called zoo experts. They were other zoo and aquarium directors from around the country that came in, sat down and just brainstormed with us.
We hired a company out of New York to do all of our surveys, and we hired a local company to do our focus groups. We knew the general theme and the direction that we needed to ask questions, and then we turned it over to professionals to actually ask the questions.
‘Do you want a zoo?’ was a big question for us because there are beautiful zoos in all of our major cities in Ohio, and the (survey respondents and focus groups) said, ‘Absolutely yes. We want our local zoo.’
Then we asked, ‘If you were able to keep it, and it could get better, what would you want to see happen with it?’ They made it very clear they wanted to see better services for themselves — easier way to get there, easier parking, restrooms you could actually get into, but more importantly, they wanted education programs for their kids, and they wanted more animal exhibits with endangered species.
They also made it clear to us that, rather than a really large zoo, they liked our boutique-style zoo, which was up close and personal, and you could get around easily in a few hours rather than it being an all-day event. So with that in mind, we went to work designing ideas for what we thought they would like.
We took it to our voters in 2000. They passed a tax levy, and we have spent the last several years fulfilling the promises that we made to them.
How has rebranding benefited the zoo’s growth?
People are coming to see us again. We had record attendance in 2005 — over 221,000 visitors, which is phenomenal for our little park. I’ve been with the Akron Zoo over 20 years, and when I first started, we had about 48,000 visitors each year.
Our audience has changed a little bit with our growth, and we’re just now starting to capture the market percentage that we should have had all along. We were just so small and insignificant that even Summit County didn’t recognize we were here, and they’re starting to wake up and see us. They like what they see, I think, and we’re delighted with that because that’s why we’re here.
How do you plan to grow attendance numbers into the future?
We’re developing Phase Two of the master plan right now with the management team. It will include some expansion of the zoo. We have additional land we can move into, and we’re putting together those basic pieces.
How are you managing that process?
First, you ask questions. Second, you listen. Then you watch and learn. Our public tells us a lot — just by the way they use the zoo.
Our initial focus groups are now done. The survey is done. Now we’re developing some solid ideas to move forward. (The 2000 tax levy funds) end in 2007. We will be asking for a renewal of our tax levy in November 2006 to develop Phase Two, and if that is approved, then we will move forward.
HOW TO REACH: Akron Zoological Park, (330) 375-2550 or www.akronzoo.org
