BAKER'S BUYS GIRAFFE, ZOO GET IT FREE

RICHARD TURCSIK

OMAHA, Neb. -- Baker's Supermarkets brought a little piece of the savanna here when it teamed up with Healthy Choice Frozen Foods to donate BOGO, the baby giraffe, to Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo.

Baby BOGO was donated to the zoo this summer. She got her name from the buy-one, get-one free zoo admission offer that was made to holders of Baker's frequent-shopper cards. The BOGO ticket offer ran through last month.

Alicia Penas, director of corporate and consumer affairs at Baker's, said the chain used a variety of tactics in the stores to promote BOGO's arrival at the zoo.

For example, Baker's paper bags were printed in a giraffe skin motif, and a coloring contest was held in the company's 14 banner stores, in which 20 children per store were awarded an inflatable giraffe. Displays were also placed in each store.

"We had posters created and there were different displays that just kept repeating the giraffe theme throughout," Penas said.

According to Penas, Baker's teamed up with ConAgra's Healthy Choice brand here to purchase the giraffe because "the zoo was in need of a giraffe, and because the zoo is such an asset to our community, we wanted to help out."

Penas added, "The reaction to BOGO the giraffe has been very positive."

Pat Quarles, manager of public relations, at ConAgra, said the promotion was extremely successful.

"We have gotten a lot of coverage on it from local media, including radio and TV stations. Everyone in the whole Omaha area covered BOGO and they talked about BOGO the giraffe," she said.

Quarles said the promotion included the entire frozen Healthy Choice line, including dinners and ice cream. The items were featured at sale prices and merchandised in the freezer aisle as part of displays that included the inflatable giraffes and posters of giraffes that were designed by Betsey M. Burhans-Fowler (wife of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom's Jim Fowler). Her giraffe was also featured as the cover of a Land's End catalog earlier this summer.

She described the promotion as a "win-win-win" for Baker's, Healthy Choice and Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo.

Cyndy Andrews, a spokeswoman for Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, said during the promotion's first two Thursdays, more than 500 BOGO admission coupons were redeemed.