FUJIFILM EVENTS TIE TO HALLOWEEN, ZOOS AND PANDAS

Fuji Photo Film USA is focusing on customers at places where picture taking is a national pastime: America's zoos.

Beginning this week, the company set up booths at 11 zoos across the country, each themed to tie into Halloween celebrations at the different locations as well as Fuji's support of the giant panda program.

A sweepstakes, Fujifilm Halloween Pandamonium Sweepstakes, ties the events with a chance to win a trip for four to the National Zoo in Washington, DC, to meet the giant panda cub born there in July. Winners also get a Fujifilm FinePix E900 digital camera. Shutterbugs can enter at Fujifilm.com/zoo.

Fujifilm taps its support of the giant panda to excite kids about parents about its products

Each of the zoos holds family-oriented Halloween celebrations over a one-day period or several weekends. Fujifilm sets up its booths amid the festivities with an exhibit highlighting the plight of the giant panda. Trick-or-treaters can have their pictures taken with a Fujifilm panda mascot and get panda trading cards that give facts about giant pandas. Sweeps information is handed out to visitors. The sweeps ends Oct. 31.

The events are taking place at the Bronx and Central Park Zoos in New York City; Brookfield Zoo in Chicago; Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden; Detroit Zoological Park; Denver Zoological Gardens; Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens; Memphis Zoo; Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, DC, Oregon Zoo in Portland; and the San Francisco Zoological Gardens.

A donation from Fujifilm helped bring the panda cub's parents, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, to the U.S. in 2000, on loan from China. Next year, the panda family takes up residence in the new Fujifilm Giant Panda Habitat at the National Zoo.

Octagon Marketing, Norwalk, CT, handles the sweepstakes and events.

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