Member Article

Chester's new zoo project’s marketing drive begins  

Chester Zoo has brought the UK one step closer to its ground-breaking new Islands attraction (launching in Spring 2015) with a new interactive website.

Islands at Chester Zoo is the biggest zoo project in UK history.

The new £30m world-class exhibit will see a previously unoccupied 50,000sq meter area of Chester Zoo’s estate transformed into the tropical environments of six South East Asian islands for families to explore. Islands at Chester Zoo will engender a breeding programme for many endangered species fighting for survival and become home to a wide collection of exotic animals, from Sumatran tigers and wild warty pigs to Indonesian rhinoceros hornbill and exotic birds such as the lorikeet.

To help build up the excitement ahead of launch, the new website designed and built by Code Computerlove encourages people to learn more about what to expect when they come to explore the wildlife attraction next year.

A highly visual site, in addition to videos showing a computer generated aerial view of the whole Islands attraction, there is an interactive map that encourages you to learn about each of the individual islands that make up the project. A news section details the history behind the project and its ongoing progress.

People can also enter a competition to be among the first to set foot in Islands by winning exclusive tickets to the official opening. A fun video has been filmed to encourage entries and further explain how to enter.

Chester Zoo’s online marketing manager, Simon Hacking said: “Code Computerlove has brought the Islands at Chester Zoo project to life within digital and mobile channels in a fantastic way. With the site as our hub, our digital marketing programme will now also include continual updates and engagement in social media channels, plus we’re encouraging people to sign up to our email updates as part of our CRM strategy.

“This is a major project not only for Chester Zoo but for the UK as a whole and the website is a fantastic illustration of what is to come in spring 2015.”

Code Computerlove was appointed to handle the project in 2013. The website launch comes on the back of a highly successful four-year long relationship between the zoo and the agency, none more so than this year. Code’s mobile work for Chester Zoo, that’s included a new mobile app, has won more than 10 awards this year alone, while the attraction itself was rated the sixth best zoo in the world and the UK’s number one in TripAdvisor’s Travellers’ Choice Attractions Awards 2014.

Chester Zoo attracts more than 1.4m visitors per year, with record online bookings once again this year strengthening its standing as a major UK attraction.

Ends

Chester Zoo is a registered conservation charity that supports projects around the world and closer to home in Cheshire. Welcoming 1.4 million visitors a year, it is the largest zoo in the UK; home to 11000 animals of more than 400 different species, many of which are endangered. The Cheshire zoo is set in 110 acres of zoological gardens and as well as being rated the UK’s number one by millions of traveller reviews and opinions in the TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Attractions Awards it is also named second best rated zoo in Europe and sixth in the world.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Kirsty Hunt .