About 13 million U.S. households, or 12 percent of the population, own an aquarium, says the American Pet Products Association, Greenwich, CT. And the average icthyo-phile spent $309 last year making sure its inhabitants didn’t float to the top of the tank.
“In today’s environment, there are a lot more peripheral activities — such as computers and Nintendo — than there were 20 years ago,” says Todd Cantrell, brand manager at Blacksburg, VA-based Tetra, a manufacturer of fish care products. “We are competing with a lot of mainstream things, and it’s very necessary to promote” not only the company’s products but aquarium-keeping as a hobby.
To herald the rollout of a new Nature’s Delica food gel last summer, Tetra used on-pack messaging to drive consumers to tetra-fish.com, where they could enter to win a trip to Discovery Cove in Orlando, FL. The in-house campaign gained more than 10,000 participants who provided their names and addresses.
The company is currently testing 15-second spots on cable TV stations, and is putting together a sweepstakes for June to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
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