• by Larissa Faw , June 4, 2015

The 84-acre Museum of Life + Science, in Durham, is a top attraction in North Carolina, particularly during the summer months, and now its agency Immortology is introducing "Know Wonder," a new campaign to encourage moms and grandmas to bring their children and grandkids to the museum.  

Although the messaging is adult-targeted, the creative is designed to appeal to the imagination of 3-to-9-year-old kids. Each month, the campaign features a different theme based around surprising science facts in order to let science spark kids' curiosity, say agency executives.

The campaign launched in May with a "flea" theme that included a print ad showing an athletic young girl long-jumping over a field full of parked junkers in an open air car lot (text:“If you were a flea, you could jump farther than 130 times your height”). June is "car" month with an ad that shows a proud and confident boy, arms crossed, with a compact four-door balanced on his head. The message says “One square foot of the earth’s atmosphere weighs about as much as a small car”).  

July is a slightly controversial theme that can appropriately be called potty humor. The ad shows ornately dressed European colonists who appear lost in a deep wood. Off to their side, a dog squats on his haunches. Text reads, “Dogs prefer to poop while aligned with the earth’s north-south axis — something to remember when you’re lost.” 

The ad also contains an inconspicuous detail that many might miss and the few who do spot it will appreciate all the more. Carved on a tree trunk are the letters CRO. The inscription, as every North Carolina school child must learn, is the only trace ever found of the lost colony of Roanoke (115 souls, settled in the New World in 1587 in Croatoan, a.k.a. “Cro,” Indian territory, now Dare County, N.C.; disappeared by 1590).  

The campaign - including the poop ad - is running in Carolina Parent magazine and will be on display as 22” x 28” out-of-home posters. The ads will also be sent as 6” x 11” direct mail cards, each month will distribute 10,000 postcards. Agency executives are still discussing a possible fourth month featuring sharks that would likely debut later this summer.  

This account has been a passion project for the North Carolina-based Immortology. Both creative leaders, Bill Harper and David Smith have been working with the museum on a freelance basis for three years. This year was the first time "we brought on [San Francisco-based] Dan Escobar for the photography, and he really raised the level of the work significantly," says Immortology's David Smith.  

The interactive science park includes a two-story science center, a butterfly conservatory that is among the East Coast’s largest, and landscaped outdoor exhibits that harbor rescued black bears, lemurs, and endangered red wolves.