Field Museum's Blood Appétite turned local restaurants into its ticket funnel, up 42%.

Chicago winters gut museum attendance, and the Field Museum needed people to come see a new 'Bloodsuckers' exhibit about blood-feeding creatures. The obvious answer was more ads, but the audience the museum needed was already going out — just not to a museum.

With Leo Burnett, the museum noticed Chicagoans brave the cold for restaurants. So it partnered with top local spots to serve a limited 'Blood Appétite' menu of blood-themed dishes, and adventurous diners earned discounted museum tickets as a reward.

The move converted a cultural habit (eating out in winter) into the museum's acquisition engine: restaurants did the inviting, and the exhibit became the reason to finish the evening. It wasn't selling the museum harder; it was piggybacking on a habit people already had.

The result was a 42% increase in attendance, more than double the goal, and the work outshone far bigger brands at the 2025 Effie Awards — winning the Grand Effie for marketing effectiveness.

Brave the cold for great food, not for exhibits

It rides a habit people already have instead of asking them to form a new one

Partners do the inviting, so the museum's message lands as a restaurant experience

A meal is a lower-friction first step than a museum trip, then the exhibit is the reward

A nonprofit beat global brands by being insight-driven rather than budget-driven

When the thing you sell is the hard part, sell the door in: borrow a habit people already have and make your thing the natural next step. A partner's traffic becomes yours.

The campaign won the Grand Effie at the 2025 Effie Awards US, held in New York, against Fortune 500 brands and purpose-driven nonprofits, and the judges repeatedly cited its ingenuity at turning a problem into an insight. The partnership model showed a mission-driven nonprofit could win on strategy rather than spend.