Digital Signage at the Zoo and you can too! (A commentary to complement my photo)

By Paul Barnhart, Marketing Coordinator, Scala

After a recent conversation with a co-worker regarding exotic animals we have seen/hope to see, I thought about zoos.

You ever have a bad trip to the zoo because there were no animals out and about?  Or maybe it was way too crowded and you could hardly catch a glimpse of what the animals were up to?

I think it’s safe to say most people have.  Little kids are always excited for their favorite animal…in certain cases, it may be all they care about.

“I want to see the monkeys!”  
“I want to see the lions!”
“I want to see the polar bears!”

Now, when you think about it, most of these animals sleep a ridiculous percentage of their day away.  Any sign of activity would be at night or first thing in the morning when public zoos have their doors closed.  So, outside of feeling slighted with the cost of parking, entrance and the fact that you smell animal stench in the hot sun all day, you don’t want to also have disappointed kids to deal with.

Furthermore, most of the zoo habitats provide plenty of nooks and crannies for animals to easily avoid the public eye, so there’s a lot going against you having a successful trip.

Placing monitors at these elaborate habitats would be a huge help to many of the tourists and schools on field trips.  When the school children are all pushing and shoving to get to the front and see the zebras just to stare at nothing, the monitor can be linked up to an interactive sensor in the pen of the animals to track their movements.

With an interactive digital signage system in place, it would be easy to make the excursion more informative and engaging.  When it finds them, whether the animals are inactive or out playing, it can show facts on the screen about their daily habits or how their life in captivity differs from their life in the wild.  If it detects lack of movement i.e sleep, the program could share information on the sleeping habits and why you’re not seeing anything fun.

Content can always be changed and updated to keep it fresh:  give biographies of specific animals, point out the group leader, mention zoo news and expected additions of fauna - let the paying public know…Educate them in an entertaining way so that they can learn something new on subsequent visits – even if the animal is asleep again (or still).

Bottom line, a little digital signage network at zoos could spruce up an empty habitat regardless of what level of activity their animal pen is showing.  Plus, I’m sure zoo staff would like a system that did all this and also provided the benefit of recording animal activity to study at a later time.

A digital signage network such as this would have allowed my colleague to bear witness to one of God’s most interesting designs:  the platypus…even if it was just catching some shuteye.

Comments

[Jeff]

I dont really think the monitors would impress the kids if the animals are not out in simple view (might as well be at home watching animal planet). Now I do see good use for them for text information AND images of the animal in it's natural habitat.

[tim warrington]

This is a brilliant idea. This would not only be on a level with todays younger generation but would engage them with the interactive digital signage, They Would learn alot more using this way to communicate.