Chester Zoo has created an industry-first, storytelling Facebook chatbot, with media partner Carat Leeds.
The activity turns the conventional chatbot on its head to deliver an interactive audio visual content experience, that takes users through a unique story across five days.
The chatbot activity forms part of a larger campaign running across Outdoor, Paid Search and Paid Social to support The Enchantment of Chester Zoo.
Back for its second year and better than ever, The Enchantment of Chester Zoo is a live theatrical event full of adventure, acrobatics, music and discovery. Taking place at the Zoo between Saturday 21 – Tuesday 31 October 2017, it’s most suitable for families and children, but enjoyable for all. Visitors will see the zoo transformed to tell the tale of an evil sorcerer who has cast a spell over the zoo, making all of the animals fall asleep.
In support of this event, the chatbot will deliver an educational short story across five nights prior to the live event, teaching users about different animals, with interludes for users to answer questions to continue with the next chapter, and encourage users to buy tickets to help overthrow the sorcerer.
To interact with the chatbot, users will need to comment with the word ‘SPELL’ on one of the specific ‘Enchantment’ posts. This will launch the introduction and take them through to the first chapter within Facebook Messenger.
Users who select to engage with the chatbot will subsequently receive a Facebook message from Chester Zoo at 7pm each night, delivering the next part of the story, which can be read alone or shared with a child as a bedtime story each night of the week.
Holly Nelson, Marketing Manager for Chester Zoo said:
“We are truly immersing the user in our rich, creative content, so we really hope they will fully engage with the magical story and return each night to hear the next exciting chapter.
“The aim of the chatbot is to create conversations between children and their parents, as they learn about endangered animals and our zoo. We hope they will look forward to receiving the next part of the story each night, in the run up to the live The Enchantment of Chester Zoo event.”
Andrea Bagan, Director for Carat Leeds said: “We’ve worked with Chester Zoo for four years and we’re really excited to be launching an industry-first chatbot.
“Automation in social is growing, with an increasing number of brands and businesses adopting chatbots to take care of on page customer service. However, we have taken the chatbot technology and re-developed it to be its own piece of interactive, rewarding content, giving users a reason to directly engage with the Chester Zoo brand by choice, rather than circumstance.
“It’s a pleasure to work with a client who is so receptive to new technologies and ideas to excite and engage target audiences.”
The chatbot is running until the 20th October.
