No Fish In My Dish

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Focusing On Schools
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Focusing On Schools
September 25, 2007

Our experience during this past month has shown that schools are the best way to spread the word about overfishing. No Fish In My Dish is a children's book. Schools are where to find children.

What's more, teachers spend time getting to know the subject in depth, and they devise projects to help teach the children about the issue. In our experience, teachers are much better than people at zoos and aquariums at:

Digging into the subject and pulling out the key points to be made
Coming up with creative, engaging ways to make those points
Creating excitement around the book and, therefore, interest in the subject

Frankly, we were surprised at this discovery.

We thought that zoos and aquariums would be our best bet. This month on the road in America has shown that to be wrong. Disappointingly, we found the lowest level of interest, the worst events, and nearly nonexistent support at zoos and aquariums -- the very places that are supposed to be working hard to save animals around the world. That discovery was an eye-opener.

There were exceptions. The El Paso Zoo worked hard with us, and sent a representative to Loma Verde Elementary School to talk about animals on the same night that I presented our No Fish program. We hope to work with them in the future as well, but always by bringing them to our events instead of trying to create an event at the zoo. Our events are simply better, with bigger crowds.

Sad to say, but zoos and aquariums don't draw people. We've had three zoo and aquarium events in three cities and all three were flops. We expended time and money getting extensive publicity on TV, radio, and in print, but nothing worked.

For example, the El Paso Zoo even put an announcement on its freeway billboard showing the event, the location, and the date, but few people showed up and only a handful of books sold. Here's the sign:

At schools, by contrast, we presented to groups as large as 200 and they loved it. We know where success waits: in the classrooms and auditoriums of America's public school system. So, we've refocused our marketing plan on schools alone from now on.

Below are some examples of the excellent work children at Loma Verde did around No Fish In My Dish:

Here we are in Myrtle Cooper Elementary School's cafeteria, packed with kids and their families, with a sales rate of almost 50%:

Here we are in Loma Verde Elementary School's cafeteria, again packed with kids and their families, with an equally impressive sales rate and level of enthusiasm:

Look at the line of people at Loma Verde waiting to have their book signed:

We've created a new marketing plan called "1K One Week" that will seek to sell 1,000 copies of the book in one week's time using a maximum of five schools in the same area. We will make our presentation four times in each school, as follows:

Grades K-1
Grades 2-3
Grades 4-5
All grades with families

We're excited about applying what we've learned, and making a difference around this important subject.

Labels: Events, Publicity, Texas

Posted by Jason Kelly at 1:05 AM Japan time
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In Sacramento
September 1, 2007

Darci's keeping me busy in Sacramento, California this Labor Day weekend.

Yesterday, I talked with Sacramento & Co. hosts Guy and Kristin on News10 ABC. They were friendly and asked some good questions about overfishing, the reason I wrote No Fish In My Dish, and what I hope to accomplish with the book.