Featherdale Sydney Wildlife Park
Prior to COVID hitting, Featherdale Sydney Wildlife Park had been operating for 48 years. Being based half way between Sydney and the Blue Mountains it was a natural stop off place for visitors, particularly international guests. Originally started in the late 1960s as a farm, it had grown to just over 600,000 visitors per year prior to COVID, with 70% of these being internationals. The impacts of COVID were therefore significant – the moment international borders were closed, the world renown wildlife park lost 70% of its usual customer base. The venue had been closed for months on end with multiple shorter closures during NSW lockdowns, it has only been in recent times that the Zoo has found its feet, with a recent Facebook Advertising campaign run by The Creative Collective.
Launched in April 2021, using the ‘Dine & Discover vouchers’ made available via the NSW Government, a campaign was strategized to register for the vouchers and use them for a Zoo visit over the Easter School holidays. To further incentivize visitation, kids were free when accompanied by an adult. Adult entry was also discounted to $25 (enabling straight swap for adult entry with the $25 Service NSW Discover voucher) We ran a series of ads in early April, a total spend of $3,202 resulted in 235,029 reached, 526,305 impressions, 21,074 clicks, $0.15 CPC & 4.00% CTR. These results translated to 39,000 visitors to the park in the month of April, which represented more revenue to the zoo than the past 10 months, and record-breaking visitation level compared to even pre-COVID levels.
Throughout the campaign the Facebook & Instagram accounts experienced a huge increase in page activity, as they also added more innovative features, such as adding links to Stories.
‘Zookeeper Chad’, the MD of Featherdale Sydney Wildlife Park & ‘Face of the Park’ further boosted efforts by sharing posts to his 282k followers on Instagram and a further 43K Followers on his Public Figure Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/zookeeperchad. Featherdale Sydney Wildlife Park also continues to engage in activities such as strategic outreach by posting on any high profile accounts such as ABC.