A Dr Pepper Christmas Twitter Contest
Hello Dr Pepper fans! We are excited to offer a fun Twitter contest to give you the opportunity to win tickets to our special holiday event, A Dr Pepper Christmas. The first people to correctly answer the questions we ask via twitter over the next few days will win two free tickets to A Dr Pepper Christmas — a $30 value!
Some things to keep in mind…
- A Dr Pepper Christmas takes place at the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco, TX, on Saturday, December 11, 2010 at 6:30 pm.
- Please only enter if you will be in Waco that evening and available to redeem your tickets and attend the event OR if you know someone who will be able to attend and you want to win the tickets on their behalf.
Some details…
- There are five sets of two tickets up for grabs.
- Your answer must be submitted via Twitter @ reply OR direct message.
- The first correct answer will be determined based on our HootSuite time stamp.
- The DPM will respond to the winning DM to let that person know they won and work out the details of them redeeming their tickets.
These details are subject to updates at any time.
Happy Birthday, Dr Pepper!
Today concludes a yearlong celebration of the brand’s flavorful history. Dr Pepper Snapple Group kicked the year off on the symbolic date of January 25 by teaming up with advertising icon David Naughton and legendary rock band KISS to ring the Closing Bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Dr Pepper Snapple Group President and CEO Larry Young and other company executives closed the trading day with the Dow gaining just over 23 points – coincidentally matching the 23 unique flavors of Dr Pepper. Naughton also led a choreographed sing-along of the classic “I’m a Pepper” jingle on the floor of the NYSE.
Continuing the celebration, the brand advertised its Dr Pepper Cherry flavor during Super Bowl XLIV with a new ad spot featuring KISS and tribute band MiniKISS. And, this summer, Dr Pepper released six collectable cans inspired by the brand’s first 125 years, along with a version made with real sugar. The anniversary cans featured legacy artwork and memorable advertising slogans such as “I’m a Pepper” and “10, 2 and 4.” In addition, 12-pack cases highlighted key moments in the brand’s history over the last century.
Today, stop by the Dr Pepper Museum for a look at Dr Pepper’s history as it touched the lives of Waco’s citizens in the early 1900s and how it has become an international favorite today! Plus what birthday celebration would be complete without cake and of course, a Dr Pepper!
Old Corner Drugstore Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company
David Naughton, the Pied Piper of Peppers100th Anniversary Ad
Your Daily Dose of Dr Pepper
We just wanted to let you all know that we’ve got a great new exhibit open – Your Daily Dose of Dr Pepper! It takes a look at Dr Pepper calendars and how different advertising techniques were used to get the Dr Pepper message across. Bet you haven’t thought about all the advertising messages you get while just looking at a calendar!
Thanks to Roger and Patsy for the loan of some great calendars! We literally couldn’t have done it without you! We want to thank Heather for working really hard during her internship last spring to get this exhibit off the ground! Thanks, Carolyn for that last minute, life-saving donation to the collection! And a big Yippee to Volunteers Ann, Michael, and Charlie for getting some of the non-glamorous work done like painting the floor, making mounts and supports for the objects, and just plain ole’ toting around of stuff!
A Tasty Experiment!
At the end of September the Dr Pepper Museum got the chance to have a booth at the InterBev Convention in Orlando Florida, which was a big deal for us since it exposed us to a lot of soft drink industry people who didn’t know there was such a thing as the Dr Pepper Museum. There are so many aspects to the soft drink industry that you just don’t even think about, and we got to meet a lot of really interesting people. One of them was Carl from Hand Truck Transport Solutions, whose company has created a patented system for making sure dollies and hand trucks don’t get left behind on route deliveries. He grew up drinking Dr Pepper, and shared a fun new food to enjoy with Dr Pepper that he has been addicted to since he was a teenager… The TastyKake Koffee Kake Junior! Carl has vivid memories of eating a TastyKake while sipping a Dr Pepper, and has made the combination somewhat of a trend in his area of Scranton, PA. Since we can’t get TastyKakes down here in Texas, he was kind enough to send us some so we could see what all the fuss is about. Here is Jack trying it out:
And here are Jack and Mary Beth saluting Carl for cluing us in to such deliciousness. If you are in an area where you can get a TastyKake you should definitely try it out and let us know how it goes!
A Pepper Party!
While we consider the Museum a happenin’ place while we’re open to visitors, sometimes wild and crazy things happen after hours, too! On August 28th Baylor’s Zeta Zigga Zamma held their third annual Klub Kool-Aid party in our courtyard. According to the Facebook pictures, it was a night for the ages, and Tyler was kind enough to send along a picture of the over 1800 people who attended:
Wow! This is a great time to remind everyone that the entire Museum building and courtyard are available for rental year-round. ZZZ, according to their Twitter page, is “An inclusive social group that offers an alternative to a fraternity at Baylor University.” For more info visit them here, and be sure to check out drpeppermuseum.com or follow us on Twitter for all the DPM scoop!
Dog Days of Summer!
On Saturday, August 21, the Dr Pepper Museum hosted its 2nd annual Dog Days of Summer, a free day for visitors to the Dr Pepper Museum! We spent the summer gearing up for this free event with the help of our Marketing Associates, Alden and Allison and Interpretation Associate, Lauren. Allison worked on the PR for the event and got us some great advertising in the Waco Tribune-Herald. Alden spent a lot of time on the phone calling area businesses for support of the event. He got us coupons to use as prizes for our games and as free giveaways during the day. Lauren did some good work for us by researching carnival style games that we had in the courtyard for kids of all ages to play! Thanks for all your hard work, Allison, Alden, and Lauren!
The morning of Dog Days arrived and we all pitched in to get everything set up. Our volunteers arrived and things got rolling at 10 am! Our visitors were lined up at the gate eager to start their experience!
They've got the Football Toss under control!
These guys are ready to go!
By the end of the day, nearly 2,000 people had walked through the doors of the museum. They had toured the Dr Pepper Museum and its highlight exhibit of the summer, Moneyville. They entered contests and won fabulous prizes. They played carnival games and won more fabulous prizes. They ate doughnuts thanks to Shipley’s and got a free candy bar thanks to Mars.
They were ready, too!
Who got the doughnut?
There was ice cream courtesy of Blue Bell Creameries, sausage from Chappell Hill Sausage, Dr Pepper thanks to Dr Pepper Snapple Group! Snow cones would not have been possible without Reddy Ice and Son Beverage Company! A special thanks also to Best Buy, Kohl’s, Insurors of Texas, Barrett Building, and Central National Bank for sponsoring the day! We also had lots of great volunteers from the Junior League and Best Buy who joined our equally fabulous Dr Pepper Museum Volunteer Corp! Thanks to all! SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!
Who made their own snow cone?
Could you have scooped the most ice out with your tootsies?
Who caught the prize winner?
Did you make a match?
Did you cover all the Dr Pepper logos?
Who caught the most marshmallows?
Thanks to all our great sponsors!
Was your snow cone pickle flavored?
Moneyville – A Blog by Brad
Hello Dr Pepper enthusiasts!!! My name is Brad Roop and I am a part-time employee at the Dr Pepper Museum. I would like to share with you my experiences with our very first traveling exhibit, Moneyville. Many of you may have already visited the museum and have seen the exhibit, but what I would like to share with you is the stuff that you didn’t see. It is my hope that my experiences with this exhibit from setting it up to becoming a docent may provide an illustration to all those who would like to know “what goes on behind the scenes.”
However, before I begin allow me to give you a more detailed background of who I am. As mentioned above I am a part-time employee of the Dr Pepper Museum. I was hired as a Collections Associate and work in the collections department. I am also a graduate student in the Department of Museum Studies at Baylor University. It is my hope that I will be graduating in May of 2011.
When I was asked to help with the installation of Moneyville I was really excited, as this was a tremendous opportunity for me to get some experience in the exhibit field. My first task was to help plan out where each exhibit piece would go on the second floor. I consulted with the exhibits team and learned some very interesting things about exhibit placement. First, the size of the room (and I don’t mean just floor space), may dictate where each piece will go. This particular exhibit had some pieces that were really tall and oddly shaped, thus we had to accommodate their size by placing them in certain places on the second floor. You see, the ceiling on the second floor is higher in some places than it is in others (something I did not know at the time) so we had to be mindful of that fact. The second thing I learned had to do with aesthetics and “flow” of the exhibit. We tried to clump similarly themed pieces together, thus enhancing the visitor experience. What this process became was a giant game of Tetris because we had to also be mindful of pieces that needed electricity, pieces that we thought would be the most popular, etc. And wouldn’t you know that this was actually the easiest part of the whole process?
Once planning was complete it was time to begin installation. Now I was working with a new team of people, and while we all had our areas of expertise, we were certainly not seasoned professionals at installing exhibits like you would typically find at bigger institutions. Our team consisted of about 4 people and it was in the middle of June when we started, so it was hot! Before the exhibit arrived I had actually planned out which piece we needed to unload first, so we could fill the second floor from back to front. However, the exhibit did not get delivered to us in that way so we had to make adjustments on the spot. Come to find out we had to do this a lot during the installation of the exhibit. Ha ha!
It may interest some of you to know that each and every piece that we pulled off the crates had to be condition reported. What that means is that we had to examine each piece for damage to be sure when the exhibit was returned that we would not be charged for repairs. This process was essential because the exhibit had been traveling extensively and was looking well-loved when we received it.
One of the biggest challenges during the installation process was getting the big pieces to the second floor. The Dr Pepper Museum does not have a freight elevator, so guess where we had to take those pieces to get them to the second floor? Yep, that’s right — the stairs!!! So our team decided to scratch the idea of only bringing in pieces that we needed on certain days and just move all the large pieces up first. Once they were in, it then became a matter of getting the smaller pieces and finishing each exhibit piece one by one. We ended up finishing ahead of schedule with a couple of days to spare from our initial deadline.
The installation process provided its own set of challenges and most of them, as I mentioned above, we couldn’t plan for. What you have to be able to do is learn to make adjustments on the spot, something I feel that I got better at because of this experience. You may think that it was a lot of work getting the pieces up to the second floor (and it was) but, something else that also takes a lot of work is communication with the other members of the group. I think once the team found its rhythm, we were able to work at our best pace, but it did take some work and a little time to develop that pace.
Once the installation was complete, and we knew that everything worked, it now became time to hone my skills as a museum docent for this new exhibit. I am currently serving in this capacity and let me tell you this is certainly a unique experience. What I feel is most rewarding is seeing children smile as they discover something new in the exhibit. It is interesting seeing different family interactions unfold when they are provided with something new to explore and discover. I think the biggest challenge with being a museum docent is the time that is needed to devote to this job. I am collections associate; we also have marketing interns, program interns, and exhibit interns. We are each expected to devote time each week to our docent role. As part of a small museum staff, you must realize that you might have to do more than just your main job!
Well it has been a pleasure talking to all of you and I hope that you might have learned something new! If you do have any questions please feel free to ask me! I work at the museum during the week and would be happy to answer any questions that you may have about my experiences with this exhibit. Talk to you soon!!!
Spooky Spot?
It’s the busy season at the Dr Pepper Museum and several of you have asked questions about our Spooky Spots that you see in the museum. Because of that, I’m reposting an article that appeared about a year on our blog! Are you ready for some spine tingling fun?
Double, double, toil and trouble, Alderton stirred and Lazenby added the bubbles. Do the spirits of Dr Pepper’s creators tread the floors of the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco? Located at the corner of Fifth Street and Mary Avenue in the turn of the century industrial district, the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company was designed by Waco architect Milton Scott and built in 1906. Now, more that 100 years later, the building that survived the 1953 Waco Tornado and was resurrected after more than twenty years of vacancy to become the Dr Pepper Museum has been certified as haunted by the investigators of McLennan County Paranormal.
June 4th, 2009 was a suspenseful evening as the staff of the Dr Pepper Museum sat down with Mike and Cindy Jacobus, founders of McLennan County Paranormal Investigations, as they revealed the evidence that led them to certify the Museum as a haunted location.
Many bumps, breathless voices, knocks, and even a few vaporous orbs were documented using the state-of-the-art equipment McLennan County Paranormal Investigations set up throughout the Museum.
The most impressive piece of audio evidence the team revealed was a female voice that could clearly be heard saying “Here’s the train…” as the actual train passed by on Jackson Street. The night vision camera that was set up looking down the front staircase recorded two light orbs fly by, one right after the other. There were many other recorded instances, but those two episodes were the strongest.
Do you want a paranormal experience of your own? Make sure to come by the Museum and keep an eye out for the Spooky Spot location markers throughout the Museum indicating the areas where the investigators recorded the most activity.
Want a paranormal experience of your own? Think you have a haunted location? Email the Mike and Cindy Jacobus at mcpi@live.com to schedule an investigation!!!
The DPM at AAM!
Mary Beth meets the friendly Dino at AAM!
During the last week of May, a few of us at the Dr Pepper Museum headed to Los Angeles for the annual American Association of Museums (AAM) conference. During the 4 day convention, there are sessions on a multitude of different museum topics, vendors hawking their wares, and friends to catch up with! The 4 of us that went (Jack, Jennie, Mary Beth, and Joy) spread out so we could see and do as much as possible and report back to each other what we learned! Here are our reports on our favorite sessions at this year’s AAM!
Time to use those listening ears!
Before our Executive Director, Jack, headed out for vacation I asked him about his favorite session at AAM. He thought Learning from Hollywood was the best one! It took a look at thematic design for exhibits. From the beginning you need to understand the theme of the exhibit and what exactly it is that you are trying to say. Interpreting those thoughts into a storyboard before you start planning can help organize the ideas in a usable format. One of the speakers was from Disney and related the talk to films and movies! How appropriate for LA!
She was never far from her iPhone!
As many of you know, Mary Beth may be our Collections Manager around here, but she is also our resident techie, so at AAM she was headed straight towards to the tech sessions. Her favorite incorporated quite a few AAMers known for their tech skills! Beyond the Shiny Object: Mission Driven Museum Technology Development brought together Nina Simon, Shelley Burnstein, Beck Tench, and Bruce Wyman. These four spoke candidly about their experiences with technology in museums. The room was packed! I know, I sat on the floor in the back.
Our Director of Visitor Services, Jennie, had an enjoyable experience in The Next Generation of Visitors: Creating Experiences for Millennials. This session touched on the differences in learning styles of different generations of Americans focusing especially on Millennials or Gen Yers. Millennials like more hands-on experiences which challenge them. They enjoy the undiscovered and unknown and think history is boring. They need to make a difference in their world. With 77 million Millennials in the United States, they equal the size of the Baby Boomers. Within 15-17 years, they will be the dominate generation.
Speakers focused on the techniques they are using at their sites to engage Millennials. At the Shedd Aquarium, the hands-on areas were not being used by young children, but by Millennials instead because they were intrigued by the opportunities of discovery available to them in these areas! They wanted to use their brains! Conner Prairie has changed their approach to first person interpretation by offering visitors the opportunity to dress in period clothes and participate in activities throughout their site.
Break time from sessions!
At the beginning of the year, we shuffled a few duties around here at the museum and I picked up the volunteer program. Having never done this before (I’ve volunteered for museums over the years, but have never been responsible for the volunteers), I was eager to attend a few sessions about volunteer programs at museums! And I hit the jackpot! First day, second round of sessions, and there was the one for me – Talking Shop: Volunteer Roundtable Discussion with Volunteer Managers and Docents!! It was developed by the American Association for Museum Volunteers (AAMV). The session was setup as a roundtable so we were all able to ask questions and offer advice and members of the AAMV mediated. What a great experience to talk with Volunteer Coordinators from across the country! Plus they had a drawing for their handbook and guess who walked out of the session with a copy in her hand!
Celebrate and Remember
CELEBRATE…
TODAY IS THE DR PEPPER MUSEUM’S 19TH BIRTHDAY! YAY! We are so happy to be in our 19th year of serving you — peppers around the world! — by opening the doors of the historic Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company and telling the awesome story of Dr Pepper and the soft drink industry. We have welcomed over 1 million people, and as a special celebratory treat here is a short history of the DPM in pictures!
The abandoned Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company
In such a sad state...but getting better!
The Founders contemplating the future of the Museum
Officially making the Museum a reality!
Opening day of the Museum! May 11, 1991
The ribbon cutting ceremony for the W. W. Foots Free Enterprise Institute
Digging up the old parking lot to make the courtyard!
Moving the giant original boiler out of the building and into the courtyard
Gingerly moving an original Waco Dr Pepper sign into the courtyard
Old Doc and Peggy Pepper with our 1 millionth visitor family!
The Dr Pepper Museum today!
REMEMBER…
Today also marks the 57th anniversary of the tornado that devastated downtown Waco and took the lives of 114 citizens. Before the tornado, downtown Waco was a bustling center of business, networking, and industry. The impact of the tornado was so deep that it became too costly and hazardous to rebuild businesses and homes where they had been before, so the bustle that defined downtown for so long moved elsewhere. We kinda like to think the restoration of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company was the spark that led to the amazing downtown revitalization we are experiencing today in Waco. In an unfortunate coincidence, Oklahoma experienced several tornadoes yesterday, leaving five people dead and huge areas stretching up to Kansas in rubble. Our hearts go out to our northern neighbors while they recover.
