A Crowdwave Case Study

Finding the Growth in Ten Visitor Segments

The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens knew the people who came loved the park. What it did not know was which audiences held the most realistic near-term growth, and what stood between them and the gate.

Local families, drive-in weekenders, and fly-in travelers all behave differently, but the marketing spoke to them the same way.

The Crowdwave Solution

Simulated human opinion across ten segments, plus a creative test of the park's own ad.

Crowdwave simulated 4,000 respondents, 400 in each of ten segments: five visitor groups split into prospects and current visitors. The build drew on the park's ticketing, membership, and Meta campaign data alongside regional visitor research, then tested motivation, barriers, conversion triggers, seasonality, and the 30-second video already running in market.

Crowdwave Results

The Challenge is Getting People to the Park

  • Current visitors recommend the park at 70 to 90 percent, prospects trail by 19 to 29 points

  • “Not top of mind” led the reasons prospects gave for not visiting, ahead of price or heat

  • Nothing in the study asked the park to change the experience, only the marketing

A Ranked Order of Priority Segments to Go After

  • Local family prospects are the warmest large pool at 53 percent intent, fly-in business at 27

  • Unfamiliarity climbs with distance: 8 percent locally, 32 percent among fly-in business

  • Families lean zoo and events, childless adults lean gardens: create one message to appeal to both

One Edit Worth More Than a Reshoot

  • The video tested well when watched, but its 215K Meta plays averaged a 3-second watch

  • About 60 percent of viewers left within two seconds, before the giraffe feeding appeared

  • Re-cutting the opening three seconds fixes the retention curve and the top complaint at once

It’s a butts-and-seats challenge. If we can get them here, we know they’re going to come back.

- Kait Hilliard
VP, Marketing and Communications, The Living Desert

Pressure-test decisions before they matter

Questions? Reach out to jeremy@crowdwave.ai