Fiona Inc.: Nearly $500K to Cincinnati Zoo from sales of hippo books, beer and ice cream
Anne SakerUPDATING with Busken Bakery birthday cookie sales, Blush Bridal birthday promotion, home crafter's contribution
Fiona the baby hippopotamus hasn't just touched our hearts, she's reached our wallets.
As she approaches her first birthday Jan. 24, the youngest superstar of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden has spurred local companies to give the zoo nearly $500,000 from sales of Fiona trinkets to her admirers around the world.
The Enquirer surveyed almost a dozen local companies with merchandising agreements with the zoo and tallied their contributions from 2017 sales of Fiona clothes, beer, decks of cards, ice cream, books, holiday ornaments and other swag for a public besotted by the little Nile hippo with a big story of survival. Total so far: more than $487,000.
The zoo itself does not have a specific accounting of how much the Fiona commerce has raised for the 144-year-old institution, the second oldest zoo in the United States. Spokeswoman Michelle Curley initially estimated that the zoo had raised $250,000 from Fiona deals but later upped that guess to $350,000.
Curley said more than $200,000 of the contributions went straight to Fiona’s neonatal care: round-the-clock veterinary attention, nutrition, medical supplies, a “pop-up” intensive-care unit in the hippo habitat and construction of swimming pools for Fiona as she grew. “The rest of the funds from the retail partners are earmarked for the care and feeding and enrichment of the hippos,” Curley said. “As you can imagine, this is a major and ongoing expense.”
The Fiona fundraising coincides with the zoo’s request to put a property tax increase on the May 8 ballot that would generate $2.1 million more annually than the current levy.
In 2017, Greater Cincinnati clearly voted for the zoo with its money, as residents were concerned, then charmed, then cheered by Fiona’s premature underweight birth, recovery, reunion with her parents Bibi and Henry and her social-media celebrity.
Officials at local companies said they expect Fiona’s birthday, which the zoo will officially celebrate Jan. 20, to generate another economic bounce.
Starting Jan. 17, Kroger will sell a Fiona Birthday Bouquet in its 109 Greater Cincinnati and Dayton stores, and $1 of the $9.99 price will go to the zoo. The bouquets of Italian Ruscus, purple mums and violet alstroemeria also feature a picture tag of Fiona.
Fiona-fueled business for the 3-year-old company CincyShirts has been “pretty insane,” said Darin Overholser, president and chief executive officer of the Over-the-Rhine apparel manufacturer. He said CincyShirts sold a stunning 45,000 Fiona-branded items – T-shirts, leggings, wrapping paper, insulated drinking cups, on and on – raising $216,000 for the zoo. Rob Meyer, the company’s in-house artist, created the whimsical portrait of Fiona for the products.
Listermann Brewing Co. in Evanston has chipped in “between $40,000 and $50,000” to the zoo as a portion of sales from its five batches of #TeamFiona beer, said general manager Jason Brewer. Listermann made 1,500 to 1,600 cases of #TeamFiona beers, and each case delivers 24 16-ounce cans – a big run, “especially for a brewery our size,” he said. “We have the potential of becoming Fiona Brewing Co.” Listermann is brewing another batch of #TeamFiona beer for her birthday.
The venerable Graeter’s Ice Cream Co. contributed $10,000 to the zoo from sales of its special-edition Chunky Chunky Hippo flavor – peanuts, toffee and chocolate truffle, made in three batches of 1,000 gallons. Spokeswoman Sarah Walters said the company is bringing back the flavor to the 53 Graeter’s stores to mark Fiona’s birthday.
Rookwood Pottery raised more than $71,720 for the zoo from sales of 12,000 of its $25 Fiona holiday ornament. Rookwood is planning a birthday ceramic coaster.
In Fiona's first months, the U.S. Playing Card Co. of Erlanger issued its Fiona deck of cards featuring photographs taken by zoo personnel. Carol Rouillard, director of brand development, said the company donated 5,000 decks to the zoo to sell in its gift shop. Another $39,512 went to the zoo from deck sales at $5.99 each in the region's Kroger stores. “Some people were telling us that the decks sold out within an hour,” she said.
The decks are out of print, and Rouillard said the company has not yet decided whether to produce more for Fiona’s birthday.
Busken Bakery sold special #TeamFiona cookies for nine months and gave $53,396 to the zoo from the proceeds, said Kathy Birkofer, director of business to business. Birkofer said the bakery increased its revenue $100,000 based just on the Fiona cookies and expanded its customer base.
“We could not make them fast enough,” Birkhofer said. “Throughout the months of March and April, we could not keep the cookies in stock.”
On Jan. 10, Busken Bakery rolled out its birthday-edition #TeamFiona cookie featuring Fiona in a party hat and the numeral 1. On Fiona's birthday, Jan. 24, Birkhofer said that in 14 days, Busken sold 13,125 Fiona birthday cookies. Like the earlier cookie, $1 from each cookie sale goes to the zoo.
Blush Bridal in Reading is giving $29 to the zoo from the sale of every wedding dress during Fiona’s birthday week
The Fiona train brought aboard home crafters, too. Tonia Graves of Moores Hill, Indiana, hand-makes Fiona hats and stuffed hippos. The mother of three children has given $50 from the proceeds of her sales to the zoo already and expects to donate more.
“What I have sold isn't up to what so many companies have. It is just me and my two hands while raising and homeschooling our three kids, while my husband is the one that has the steady income for the home,” she said. “Giving back to the local community is what keeps it going. I am so happy to be able to do just a small portion of it.”
WCPO published 6,000 copies of its book, “My Best Friend Fiona,” by Lucy May and Kevin Necessary and gave the zoo a check for $21,000, said station General Manager Jeff Brogan. “We grossly underestimated the demand,” he said. Another publishing run of 6,000 copies is scheduled to coincide with Fiona’s birthday, he said.
Blue Manatee Press in Oakley has pledged to the zoo six percent of the royalties in perpetuity from sales of its book, “Fiona’s Feelings,” by Dr. John Hutton, a pediatrician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, an author of children’s books and owner of the press and the Blue Manatee Children's Bookstore, also in Oakley.
Amy Dean, the press’s editorial and marketing director, said 3,888 copies have been sold locally so far, most for $7.99. On Tuesday, the book became available nationally, and Dean said Amazon.com alone had ordered 1,200 copies.
Matt Raybuck, owner of the 5-year-old Queen City Sportswear in Anderson Township, merged Fiona with the city’s other new obsession, its soccer team, and came up with an FC Fiona logo for clothes and other gear. Raybuck said sales of more than 500 T-shirts were so robust that his company was able to donate more than $5,000 to the zoo. “We had record traffic to our website. We definitely had record sales.”
Normally, Pine Lane Soaps makes soap from the milk of goats raised on a Batavia farm. But last summer, farmer Becky Jones and her family ordered a hippo mold, blended a different formula and created 300 hippo soaps that sold out at Christmas. Jones said her business will donate $300 to the zoo from the sales proceeds. She is making another 300 soaps for Fiona’s birthday.
Separate from the charitable contributions, the zoo made some money from internet advertising for its wildly popular series of Fiona videos. Curley, the zoo’s spokeswoman, said Wednesday the zoo made $81.88 from Facebook advertising for “The Fiona Show” videos, and YouTube.com revenue has brought in about $6,000.
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What it's like to take care of a baby hippo
Fiona's dad, Henry the hippo, dies at Cincinnati Zoo