Lucy King and Edd Smith, Bristol Zoo www.charitycomms.org.uk/events

1. South West Regional Group
Seminar: Producing Creative
Campaigns
02 March 2012
www.charitycomms.org.uk

2. • Lucy King, PR Manager
• Edd Smith, Corporate Development
Manager

3. Bristol Zoo Gardens
•175 years old in 2011
•12-acre botanical gardens in Clifton
•Over 400 different animal species
•Flagship species – gorillas
•Approx’ 500,000 visitors each year
•10k annual household members

4. Over the last 175 years Bristol Zoo Gardens has:
•brought six generations of Bristolians closer to wildlife
•helped save over 175 species from extinction through captive
breeding
•established over 30 field conservation and research programmes
around the world
•showed 40 million school aged children the value of nature
•given more than 90 million visitors a great day out.

5. BCWEZS
The Society is a registered charity whose aims are to advance:
(a) the public understanding and the conservation of wildlife
and the natural environment
(b) the scientific study of animals and plants
•Bristol Zoo Gardens is a conservation and education charity and relies on
income from visitors and supporters to continue its important work
•Bristol Zoo is involved with more than 100 co-ordinated breeding
programmes for threatened wildlife species.
•Bristol Zoo supports 15 projects in the UK and abroad that conserve and
protect some of the world’s most endangered species.

6. 2011 – a landmark year
•Bristol Zoo is 175 years old!
•Part of the community
•City-wide celebrations
•Wow! Gorillas
•Life-size, painted fibreglass gorilla sculptures
•Mini sculptures for schools
•Free trail across Bristol beyond
•Partners - Wild In Art & Bristol City Council, Wallace &
Gromit’s Grand Appeal

7. Wow! Gorillas
AIMS - To change the way people think of the Zoo as a charity,
through engaging with people’s hearts and community pride.
• Celebrate 175 years of Bristol Zoo
• Drive new/more visitors (3%)
• Be the leading light and pride of Bristol
• Be known for our conservation
• Attract funding
• Be known for our charitable work
• Income from the auction

8. Wow! Gorillas
Audiences:
•The wider Bristol public (1.5 hour drive time)
•Businesses/organisations
•Schools
•Creative community
•The media

9. Wow! Gorillas
Campaign timeline:
•Nov 2010 – public & corporate launch
•January 2010 – Schools launch
•Nov 2010 - April 2011 – sponsorship (tiered)

10. Wow! Gorillas
Campaign timeline:
•Jan-April 2011- Artist Recruitment
•Spring 2011 – Designs chosen
•June – Press, sponsors & artists preview
•July 4th – Launch – Gorilla Flotilla

11. Wow! Gorillas
Campaign timeline:
•Summer – 10 week gorilla trail

12. Wow! Gorillas
Campaign timeline:
•Mid-September – Gorillas to London
•Late September – ‘Goodbye Gorillas’ at Bristol Zoo

13. Wow! Gorillas
Campaign timeline:
•September 29th - Auction

14. Wow! Gorillas
Tactics (on & offline)
•Logos and graphics
•Press - Launch, Ongoing, Externally via the sponsors, reactive
•Photography
•Social Media
•Website
•Facebook competitions (favourite gorilla)
•Corporate Liaison
•Trail Map
•Guide Book
•E-News-Schools, Corporate, Generic

15. Wow! Gorillas
Tactics (continued)
•Zoo Magazine
•Street teams -taking small gorillas to events
•Education outreach sessions
•Mobile phone Apps (iphones & android)
•Plaques and promotional activity on the bases
•Auction guide book
•Auction – live blog & webcam
•Sponsorship, artist and education packs
•Merchandise
•Raffle

16. Wow! Gorillas
Results
Analysis against objectives;
•A significant increase in Zoo visitor numbers month on month
•Increased public and corporate knowledge of the Zoo’s conservation and
charitable work
•Funding of £135,000 from sponsorship
•£427,300 raised at the auction.

17. Wow! Gorillas
Further results:
•62 gorillas sponsored, of which 44% of firms did not have an existing
relationship with Bristol Zoo
•The project attracted over 300 artist submissions from the creative
community of Bristol and beyond
•Offline marketing activity resulted in 220,000+ people taking part in the
trail
•75,000 free trail maps picked up and 35,000 downloaded from zoo
website
•Online marketing activity resulting in 1.7million people seeing the project
on social media and website traffic increasing 86% from 2010

18. Wow! Gorillas
Further results:
•96% would recommend visiting Wow! Gorillas to a friend (Bristol City
Council research)
•We welcomed nearly 20,000 visitors over five days for the ‘Goodbye
Gorillas’ event
•A total print ‘PR value’ of the Wow! Gorillas project equating to £3.5
million. (Much higher for broadcast & online)
•Post auction - ‘Gorilla Guardians’.

19. Wow! Gorillas
Schools campaign - results:
•99 schools and nurseries involved
•Their key motivation = the opportunity to be part of a large scale
community project (85% response)
•Education sessions - 17,000 pupils had direct exposure to the project
and its key conservation messages.
•76% of school involved the whole school in the gorilla project.
•96% of participating schools gave the overall experience scores of 4 or 5
out of 5.
•75% of participating schools have since taken positive action to support
gorilla conservation.

20. Wow! Gorillas
“Wow! Gorillas has provided us with an experience that we
hope the children will remember for the rest of their lives.
Thank you. We felt very proud to be part of it.”
- Head teacher, Broadway Infant School

21. Wow! Gorillas
Lessons
•Project plan & timeline
•Resources & under-estimations
•Late additions/opportunities (e.g mobile phone apps)
•stronger conservation messages needed in situ
•Sponsors’ not claiming their free Zoo education sessions

22. Wow! Gorillas
The future
•Building on campaign success
•A change of focus
•Building on the relationships made in 2011
•Gorilla Guardians
•Transferring 13k Wow! Facebook fans to Bristol Zoo page
•Schools visiting Bristol Zoo
•2012 – What’s next..?

23. To everyone who supported & enjoyed
Wow! Gorillas - thank you!