Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium was working on a new strategic plan with significant growth goals and wanted to better understand the role of brand identity, marketing communications, and the visitor experience.

We began our exploration by observing first-hand how visitors interact with animals, exhibit spaces, signage, and each other. We also went along for the journey, spending hours with families on their end-to-end zoo excursions to get at the essence of why people come to the zoo and what the experience is like for them. An extensive community survey was then conducted to quantify learning and provide a detailed segmentation of the market Pittsburgh Zoo sought to saturate.

 

Our findings and recommendations strongly informed the strategic plan and led to changes in signage, on-site operations, targeting, marketing communications, pricing, and the overall approach of connecting visitors to wildlife conservation and protection, a key aspect of the organization’s mission.