Well, if you took it just on the face value of a zip code, you’d say, “Well, looks like we’re getting this number of people from here, this people from there.” What we found out was 50% of the visitors to the Oklahoma City Zoo lived within 25 miles. Now,… Read More
We hired a firm and we did a survey and we got the impression, the zoo was well liked, very popular place. That wasn’t a problem. Yeah, there were concerns about some of the animal exhibits. There was concerns about a lot of different things but overall it gave us… Read More
And how do the people feel about this institution?… Read More
Hire yourself a good marketing person. I think… Yeah and that’s it. Hire yourself a good marketing person. Just like hire yourself a good PR person. There are some things, you can’t be a Jack of all trade but more likely a master of none. Marketing is a tough thing. Read More
And you’re much better having someone who does understand that, give them guidance and give guidance back. I was always glad that I had a marketing person ’cause I am not a marketer. And I don’t know many people with animal backgrounds that are good marketing people. That’s just not… Read More
What should I be thinking about?… Read More
How should I be thinking about approaching it?” And you tell me?… Read More
And I say, “Tell me something, what’s the importance of marketing my zoo?… Read More
I don’t know that there’s an answer for that. Teenagers, they’re an enigma. Then eventually they grow out of it, then they’re human again. If you’ve had teenage kids, you’ll understand that. I think teenagers have so much going on in their life. I don’t know that that zoos will… Read More
And the zoo is there, they might go to it once in a while, probably with their families, probably rarely on their own. And then they get through formal education if they do that and then as they get older and particularly if they get their own children, they’re gonna… Read More
How do zoos reach teenagers, a whole different group?… Read More
It’s a whole new world in their ability to do that. But one of the important things that I think that she said was, “We’ve got to make it fun.” Now, I think we’ve always known that, that you learn better when you make it fun. Don’t throw all that… Read More
There’s some tremendous liability issues related there but somehow they’re trying to find methodologies so to give them a more intimate experience with the keeper or with the animal or with the lifestyle that the animal lives. Making it one step further into their education of what goes on in… Read More
That’s interesting. I had a conversation with a colleague recently and we talked about… This particularly individual is director of education at the zoo. And I said, “What with all this technology that’s coming on, how’s all this working in?” And it’s really very fascinating that the methods in which… Read More
What can be done, we’ve talked about visitors, what can be done to make the visitor connection more meaningful at a zoo?… Read More
What programming or what would you want to have happened?… Read More
I still live in the community. I still don’t see animal rights as being a big high level, high focus area in the community. Read More
Do you believe that this education in general helped to boost the zoo’s image in the face of you had mentioned anti-zoo imaging from different groups?… Read More
Well, I think it’s happened in other communities. Oklahoma City community is a little unique. There isn’t a large anti-animal rights community. This is a community of people who understand, who hunt, who fish, who understand the out of doors. They are not animal rights activists per se. There are… Read More
Highly utilized by the community for their programs as well as by their families. Read More