Each year, millions of New Yorkers think about what they’re going to be for Halloween, with costume stores popping up on every corner. We wanted to capitalize on this mass-anticipation to get people to buy tickets to Boo at the Zoo.

But we had to change the conversation on what people were planning to dress up as for Halloween.

So we built a campaign that would Inspire Action by bringing a new level of anticipation to Boo At The Zoo while making it relevant to a whole new audience.

We started by giving a new twist to a familiar Halloween question… What are you going to be for Boo at the Zoo?

We built The Bronx Zoo Boo-tique, the first-ever experiential pop-up space from the Bronx Zoo. Part Halloween costume shop, part dress-up photo booth with an animal twist, the Bronx Zoo Boo-tique took all the magic of Boo At The Zoo and brought it to the Lower East Side. 

We invited people from all around to come try on animal fascinators, masks and wings curated from artists worldwide. By getting the attention of NYC's trendsetters we generated word-of-mouth and quickly surpassed our visitation goals.

We gave visitors free henna tattoos and painted their faces with animal themes. We even had an animal-spirit tarot card reader from the Omega Institute. Many used our photo booth to document the experience, spreading the word (and our #bronxboo hashtag) to their followers. We also asked people to share pictures of themselves wearing our one-of-a-kind costumes on social media for a chance to win awesome prizes.

In just four days, over 1,000 people experienced the Boo-tique. Those who attended, helped spread the word through social media, giving us almost a half a million online impressions. We tracked brand sentiment through Netbase before and after the event and found that there was a 64% lift in people talking about the zoo on social media during the Boo-tique, 100% of which was positive.   

Out of the 260 people who took amazing selfies on our photo booth, 17 lucky winners were sent a custom animal mask, limited-edition t-shirt and special discount code for Boo At The Zoo.

And, best of all, tons of Boo at the Zoo attendees dressed up in costumes, making every weekend in October that much more enjoyable for everyone.