St. Andrews aquarium mixup becomes partnership
An online contest has created confusion among aquarium fans in New Brunswick and Scotland.
It started on Facebook, where St. Andrews Aquarium in Scotland wanted users to click the "like" button on its family pass photo. One lucky clicker would win a free pass.
More than 1,000 people did, most of them from St. Andrews, N.B. — about 4,500 kilometres away.
"Normally we would get 30 people liking that kind of thing, but at 10 o'clock at night I logged on and noticed the likes had gone up to 1,190. And then I thought, 'that's very strange,'" said Trisha Fox of St. Andrews Aquarium, Scotland.
The misunderstanding is understandable considering the uncanny similarities between the two aquariums. Each has two seals, each has a wolffish, and each even has a lobster with the same name: Lily.
St. Andrews Aquarium, Scotland, has meerkats, which St. Andrews Aquarium, New Brunswick, does not.
"Oh my, we've had people come in looking for the baby meerkats when they were born. I was downstairs and this lady's like, 'Where's your cats ... I read it on your website,'" said Janie Jones of the New Brunswick aquarium.
By the time both St. Andrews aquariums got to the bottom of the online problem, they realized that maybe it could be an opportunity.
Now Ashley Simpson in St. Andrews, N.B. and Trisha Fox in St. Andrews, Scotland, are thinking up ways to promote one another from overseas.
They claim to be the "first ever twinned aquariums in the world."
Already, St. Andrews Aquarium, Scotland, has benefitted from a 40 per cent increase in Facebook followers and hundreds of shares.
