SKELETONS: Animals Unveiled! Identifying the campaign’s target audience and key messaging

Skeletons: Animals Unveiled is a one-of-a-kind museum located in the middle of a booming tourist district, I-Drive 360 entertainment complex. The Orlando, Florida location is the largest of the Villemarette family’s two skeletons museums. The museum was brought to Orlando in hopes to share Jay’s passion for osteology with other families from all around the world. Located in the most visited destination in the United States, the I-Drive 360 complex and surrounding areas is host to a number of other popular activities and attractions. However, a key struggle for the museum is finding the right mix of advertising and awareness tactics to increase foot traffic. A solution to this particular challenge is to build brand awareness through a new comprehensive social media advertising strategy.

This past summer I had the pleasure of working with this client providing research analytics as an intern for a local advertising agency. I got to meet with the general manager and learn information about the company, its vision and history about the museum. In order to help the client with the lack of audience traffic to their attraction, myself and the entire team of interns conducted intercept surveys on-site at I-Drive 360, surveying random visitors of the complex asking questions on why they were visiting today and how they heard about the complex or Skeletons. We collected a total of 56 respondents. Of those 56 collection responses, 8 had visited/planned to visit Skeletons, and 14 said that although they had not planned to visit and had not been before, they were interested in visiting in the future. This group of 22 (39%) people makes up the target group. Seven in ten (68%) of those surveyed who are interested in visiting and/or who have visited Skeletons: Animals Unveiled are female.

Advertising is all about ensuring the right people here the right message. By breaking our audience into locals and visitors/tourists’ prospects, we can ensure that Skeletons’ message is communicated effectively through the use of social media networks. By doing this we can tailor our advertising efforts and budget to speak to one audience specifically, maximizing reach and frequency in an effort to get our consumer to take action and visit the museum.

This social media campaign will target females, ages 25-50, accompanied with family and/or children and will create top of mind awareness for Skeletons emphasizing educational and entertainment opportunities and will share a voice within the I-Drive 360 tourism market through the use of social media channels.