Engaging supporters more in conservation

Edinburgh Zoo Success Story

The Challenge

Edinburgh Zoo, including the Highland Wildlife Park, is one of Europe’s foremost wildlife conservation agencies as well as one of Scotland’s foremost visitor attractions. It also has onsite projects in Africa and undertakes research worldwide.

=mc consulting decisionscience team were hired to improve the way visitors engaged with the animals and supported the wider conservation work of the Zoo. Some issues we had to address were:

Many visitors were only really focused on a small number of species: the ‘cute’ and the ‘dangerous’ on their visits.
It was difficult to share the Zoo’s message on conservation work since much of this takes place in Africa or other remote settings.
The Zoo team were keen to explore how to link an interest in conservation with new ways of support while still functioning as a popular visitor attraction.

What We Did

The =mc decisionscience team set up a series of related activities to get a rounded view of what had to be done. We:

Spent some days on site exploring how visitors moved through the Zoo where they stopped, what they looked at, what they passed by.
Organised a series of in-depth interviews with visitors, with long term higher value supporters, with volunteers and, of course, with staff.
Undertook research on other Zoos tacking the same issues and made a specific scoping visit to the Bronx Zoo in NYC, famous for its engagement.
Ran a series of interactive workshops with staff from across a range of Zoo departments and functions.

In the middle of all this work the coronavirus epidemic hit the Zoo… and it had to close.

Undeterred we produced some ideas on journeys through the site, with new signage and suggestions for interactive engagement with visitors to be introduced post lockdown.

This work focussed on some classic decision science areas: key messengers, offering visitors agency, the potential for loss of species, and on making the need for conservation salient.

Over a period of some weeks during the lockdown we also worked with Zoo specialists on a behaviourally informed digital engagement strategy involving creating personas for the keepers, making a series of website changes including developing a feeding programme proposition and building links to live webcams.

The Impact

We ‘re still waiting on the long-term results of the new signage and visitor journey when the Zoo re-opens. But the online support helped increase online income to over £100K and visits to the webcams up to 5M views. And the Zoo now have a group of high value donors who have signalled their willingness to support conservation project.

Next Steps?

Have a similar challenge or want to explore a project?
Contact Bernard Ross, Director.
b.ross@managementcentre.co.uk
+44 7976 280314

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