INSIGHTS

2021.03.23

R&D DISCUSSION Vol. 32

How to create a "water mass" that attracts adults
Turning aquariums into "media" through a customer-centric approach

Gen Nakamura Aquarium Producer

R&D DISCUSSION TOP

Q: How did the job title of "aquarium producer", Japan's first such position, come about?

A: When I was a child, I just played and I wasn't good at studying. But I was really good at writing compositions and I wanted to be a writer. So when I was in the sixth grade of elementary school, I entered a prefectural book review contest and got second place. I was disappointed that there were people who were better than me, and I thought that I would never be able to become a writer if I wasn't talented enough to get first place. I failed the entrance exam for the Faculty of Letters at university and went on to the Faculty of Economics. I majored in marketing, but I didn't study because I was shooting movies every day, so I was proud of the fact that I only barely got the credits I needed to graduate and got all the "pass" marks (laughs). I wanted to work in the mass media and publishing industry, but I was completely unsuccessful, and I was wondering what to do when I happened to get a job at Toba Aquarium in my hometown of Mie Prefecture. I decided to force myself to believe that aquariums are also "media" in the sense that they show and communicate marine life to people.

Naturally, I didn't have any specialized knowledge, so I joined the company not to be a zookeeper, but to take on management planning and the like, but I soon realized that "if you don't know about the field, you can't do anything at an aquarium." So I worked as a zookeeper for the first three years, and it was fun because I learned so many new things, but the staff around me all loved fish more than anything else, and I couldn't keep up with their knowledge and experience, so I was a real failure. However, while they understood the feelings of the fish, I thought they didn't really understand the psychology of the customers. The customers didn't look at the aquarium at all, and it felt like a TV program that no one watched, or an article that no one read. That would make it meaningless as a media outlet. I can't remember the names of fish at all, but I did learn a little about marketing at university, so I thought I could make use of that. There are many people who excel in the world of aquarium breeding and the world of attracting customers, but I thought that I could be the best in the combination of those two, that is, the world of thinking about aquarium exhibits and attracting customers. We decided to take on the challenge of creating an aquarium that would be as captivating as possible.

First, I started by promoting the creatures I kept. I took pictures of interesting behavior and unusual scenes and sent them to TV stations. I bought the equipment, thought about what kind of footage viewers wanted, and devised ways to present it. I started being featured regularly, and I was basically a TV correspondent (laughs). The effect of attracting visitors when it was broadcast was amazing. It was the moment when the aquarium became "mediatized." Then, I had the opportunity to renew the exhibits, and I began to think about how to create an aquarium that would attract many people, replacing viewers with visitors. That was the beginning of my career as an "aquarium producer," and it's a theme I still think about today.

Q: What techniques do you use to create captivating exhibits?

A: One of the marketing techniques I value is observing the behavior of customers. I follow them all the way and closely observe how they move and what they are looking at. In fact, I also use this in my other role as an advisor for revitalizing tourist destinations through barrier-free access. It's a hobby-like job I started when I helped revitalize tourism in Ise-Shima when I was the deputy director of Toba Aquarium, but in terms of customer-oriented marketing, there are many things in common with aquariums. For example, what kind of facilities would be good to have if you were to make an old inn barrier-free? When you survey people with disabilities, the only opinions they get are things like a ramp at the entrance and handrails in the toilet. Of course, those are important, but what they really want is something different, and you can see that by observing their behavior. When you go to a ryokan, you want to lie down on tatami mats, right? People with disabilities do the same. But people with disabilities themselves can't imagine a situation where they have a tatami floor when using a wheelchair, so it doesn't come up in the survey. However, if you look closely, you'll see that if there is tatami mats, they want to lie down on them, and if the view from the window is great, they'll try to get closer to the window, regardless of any small steps. It doesn't have to be completely barrier-free; being able to "do what you want at an inn" leads to satisfaction. The new barrier-free room at an inn that we instructed on was a raised tatami mat area in a corner that can be accessed by wheelchair users, and was very well received, resulting in a significant increase in the number of guests.

I am currently teaching exhibition studies at a university with a marine science department, and I often take my students to aquariums to observe their behavior. The students are always surprised by the series of unexpected behaviors of the visitors, but the deep psychology that can be deciphered from behavioral observations provides hints for creating exhibitions that attract visitors. "Water mass" is a theme that was derived using this method. As I mentioned at the beginning, when I visited aquariums all over Japan, I noticed that the majority of people were enjoying the world inside the tanks, not the fish. In addition, half of the tanks were not even being looked at. So, I observed what kind of tanks people were looking at, and found that they were "bright" and "blue" tanks. At that time, green was the mainstream color for aquariums. This is because the world inside the sea and rivers is mostly green. However, what customers wanted was a "blue" underwater world. If you create a space with a customer-oriented idea, people will naturally gather.

Sunshine Aquarium "Oasis in the Sky" [Part 1] Sunshine Aquarium "Oasis in the Sky" [Part 2]

PROFILE

Aquarium Producer

Hajime Nakamura

Nakamura Hajime

Born in Mie Prefecture in 1956. After graduating from Seijo University (majoring in marketing), he joined Toba Aquarium. He worked as a zookeeper, then head of the planning department, before becoming deputy director and successfully renovating Toba Aquarium. In 2002, he left Toba Aquarium to become Japan's first "aquarium producer," and has been involved in the renovation of numerous aquariums, including Enoshima Aquarium (Kanagawa), Sunshine Aquarium (Tokyo), Kita no Daichi Aquarium/Yama no Aquarium (Hokkaido), and Mariho Aquarium (Hiroshima), as well as writing numerous books about aquariums. He is also an advisor for the revitalization of tourist destinations nationwide, and serves as chairman of the Japan Barrier-Free Tourism Organization and the Ise-Shima Barrier-Free Tour Center.

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R&D TOP

Update : 2018.09.21

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