The Creative Kids Museum

The Creative Kids Museum, part of the Telus World of Science in Calgary, is dedicated to the belief that creativity is vital to kids’ development, and was therefore designed to be a place that unleashes little ones’ imaginations and encourages hands-on discovery. With its official opening last October, its executives turned to Taxi to bring that to life.

The challenge for the agency was that while the museum is intended for kids, its communication was aimed at their parents. This quickly became an insight. Adults tend to categorize things in black-and-white terms, whereas kids have no parameters, so the campaign centred around how an everyday object could become something magical if a little child-like imagination was applied.

A series of one-page print ads featured a stick, a pot and a ball, accompanied by a list of the many ways one could interpret them. While construction on the building was underway, banners were applied to perimeter fencing that asked what bulldozers were doing – digging to China, or possibly creating the world’s biggest mud pie?

After the museum opened, signage in the parking lot indicated which spaces were reserved for ogres, and directed the Wicked Witch of the West to park to the left of the Wicked Witch of the East. The experience continued inside: the admission area was divided into lines for adults, kids and imaginary friends.

Tickets for the opening day sold out. Goals for membership sales were exceeded, and more people are coming to the Creative Kids Museum than expected.