By James McNair
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Kroger is the corporate sponsor of the Lords of the Arctic exhibit at the zoo. Other businesses are sponsoring sections of the new education center. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

In the hierarchy of popular attractions, the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden falls somewhere on the sedate end of the field.

More than 1.1 million people visited the 128-year-old facility in 2002, and it wasn't flash that drew them.

The Cincinnati Zoo still depends on sedentary, often stationary, sometimes surly animals to draw people into a bestial version of MTV's Real World. For all the artificial action of theme parks, people still turn out to see animals just as they are.

That's not to say it can't be a better outing. Gregg Hudson, entering his third year as president and CEO of Cincinnati Zoo, is tapping his marketing background. To veterans of the theme park scene, the changes are subtle. But they go a long way in making zoo visitors more comfortable and putting the zoo on firmer financial ground - without compromising the zoo's mission in education and conservation.

Among the changes:

• Adding a Burger King concession, Starbucks coffee and a United Dairy Farmers ice cream stand.

• Adding a two-weekend Halloween trick-or-treating event.

• Enlisting Home & Garden TV Network to sponsor Zoo Blooms and Procter & Gamble to sponsor Zoo Babies and Frogs.

• Starting construction of a carousel featuring endangered species.

• Outsourcing the gift shop to a professional retail manager.

• Discontinuing the popular, but money-losing, ice-skating rink during the winter Festival of Lights.

• Adding bathrooms, refreshment stands and dining tables.

• A planned breakup of the zoo tram ride into four segments, allowing people to ride up steeper sections of the zoo.

Hudson ran the Fort Worth Zoological Association in Texas before taking the Cincinnati job in April 2001. He was hired in Fort Worth just as that city privatized its zoo. He added splashy displays, introduced brand-name concessions and launched a corporate sponsorship program that included the likes of American Airlines, Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, Fujifilm, Radio Shack, banks and the super-rich Bass family.

Keeping the right balance

He means to do it without turning the zoo into a tacky exhibit of capitalism. Unless you count naming rights, such as the Fort Worth Zoo's Cheetos Cheetahs, the Fujifilm Komodo dragons and Terminix Insect City.

"It's a tricky thing to balance," said Hudson, whose first job as a teenager was operating a cotton candy machine at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington. "You don't want to overly commercialize your zoo. You don't want it to get to the point where it looks like a NASCAR stock car and slapping logos all over the place. It has to be done thoughtfully."

By the time zoo visitors see a commercial product, it's a more than welcome sight. Burger King was tastefully inserted last summer into the zoo's outdoor dining area, giving people, particularly kids, menu items they know. Unlike Burger King, Starbuck's doesn't even have a sign; its products are sold in a kiosk called Jungle Java.

Running the zoo with a more businesslike approach is already paying off, Hudson said. The "privatized" gift shop generated $2.40 in revenue per zoo visitor last year, up from 60 cents the year before. Burger King and other concessions are upping the zoo's overall take. The Halloween event last year brought in 40,000 people, he said, and this spring's Zoo Blooms is shaping up as a big hit.

"So far it's put us in a much better position to get into the year with great momentum," Hudson said. "We had the best April we've had since 1987, and it put us way ahead of budget."

Hudson divides corporate participation into two categories: Concessions and sponsorships. The zoo has long relied on companies such as Kroger, Provident Bank, Frisch's and Procter & Gamble. But Hudson is tapping that well even more.

A massive, $8.2 million educational building is set for completion in 2005. Frisch's plunked down $500,000 to help build a 350-seat theater while P&G is paying the lion's share of a central atrium. Moreover, Hudson said Huntington Bank has just agreed to cover transportation and zoo admission for every third-grader in Cincinnati Public Schools.

Mary Ruth Stevens of Anderson Township, a zoo contributor, 17-year volunteer and board member since 2001, commended Hudson's accomplishments so far. She said she endorses his introduction of more private-sector vendors and his increased use of corporate sponsorships.

"I think that's very good business," Stevens said. "You get somebody else to pay for it."

Darlene Anderson of Indian Hill, who resumed contributing to the zoo in 2001 after a six-year hiatus, said she thinks Hudson is achieving his goal of improving the business and pleasure aspects of the zoo while staying true to its mission.

"If you can have some things, especially that don't diminish the zoo, to get people to move around the zoo, to force them to go to other exhibit areas, I think he's done it the right way," Anderson said. "When I go to the zoo, would I rather have a Starbucks or the crappy coffee that the zoo used to serve years ago?"

Perhaps the most eye-popping addition to the zoo will be open this summer - a carousel of carved endangered animals. More zoos are installing carousels, and Cincinnati's will cost $350,000 and feature a custom-built Sumatran rhinoceros, Hudson said. But he estimates that the fee-based ride will return a minimum of $150,000 a year. Work on it is under way in a peripheral location between the outdoor dining area and a parking lot.

"We're committing more dollars than we ever have to education and conservation," Hudson said, "but in order to pay for that, we have to come up with other sources of revenue. We thought the carousel would be an interesting thing to put in and net out dollars for the increase in conservation spending."

Stevens and Anderson give thumbs-ups to the carousel.

"I visit a lot of zoos in my traveling and look at them with a critical eye, and carousels are becoming the thing," Stevens said. "They have a huge carousel at the Riverbanks Zoo & Garden in Columbia, S.C., and the man who runs it says it paid for itself in two years."

Fun is important

Said Anderson: "The average visitor, I think, will welcome the carousel. The first thing my grandson wants to do at the zoo is ride the train."

Clocking in at a zoo every day, Hudson savors every minute of his job. Donors, employees and volunteers praise his style, business savvy and respect for the institution. If someone has a complaint or idea, he says he'll listen to it. One thing he won't do is let the zoo stand still and behave according to not-for-profit operational models of the '80s or '90s.

"This is a business model," Hudson said between greeting guests and volunteers during a golf-cart tour of the zoo last week. "It isn't one that people normally think of, but every day I'm exercising the same kind of business practices and philosophies that a mid-sized business does on a regular basis."

E-mail jmcnair@enquirer.com.