Eltanin Casciani
Community Manager
Hayo Zookeepers,
It's almost time for the Planet Zoo: Conservation Pack! We hope you've been having a fun time working as interns for our Planet Zookeeper, Steve, over on our social media. If you aren't sure what we're talking about then come join in the educational fun over on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook! There's not long left until the Pack launches on 21 June but, before that, we're back with another developer journal for you all.
Today we're joined by Rachel Maarek (they/them), the Product Manager for Planet Zoo, as they tell us all about how we work with zoos and charities, and the ways Planet Zoo has supported conservation efforts ourselves! So, without further ado:
Hayo Rachel! Thanks for joining us here over on the PlanZo forums. Can you introduce yourself to everyone reading this, and let us know a little bit about what you do?
Hi!!
I'm Rachel, the Product Manager on Planet Zoo. I work on the marketing strategy and the supervision of it for the game and its wonderful packs. How it usually goes is that I discuss upcoming pack content with the developer team, then brief the main art, trailers, and screenshots to the creative team and present the strategy to our many amazing teams! Once this is done, I review and discuss the visuals and plans while they're being created and just make sure everything aligns with the quality and messages of Planet Zoo. I am usually considered the "main marketing contact" specific to the title, whether it's internally, or with our partners. I usually review these developer journals, too, so it feels so strange and touching to be part of one!
In our last developer journal, we were joined by Josh and Victor, where we learned all about how working with partner zoos has benefited the animation team. However, there's much more to it than just that! Why don't you tell us about some of the ways in which we've worked with partners before?
We have worked with a few zoos now, and we've done different things with each! Our first partner was the San Diego Wildlife Alliance, and we invited influencers and journalists to visit the gorgeous animals there, sponsored signage at the zoo, and had our community team at the time interview their staff during special streams as well! We have also worked with Chester Zoo and supported them during lockdown with a special charity stream, and gifted adoption kits of their lovely meerkats during the campaign for the exciting Africa Pack. Lastly, we have very recently been able to work with the Shepreth Wildlife Park for our Capy-Cam charity stream, which was such a joy to work on! You might remember it since it was so recent, but staying the whole day in the company of these lovely animals and getting to hear all this precious information from the zookeepers was a wonderful experience.
That's amazing! But with so many amazing zoos, charities, and organizations, it must be difficult to know where to start. How is it that you go about deciding who to work with?
There is definitely a lot out there! When we look into working with zoos in general, I team up with our PR Manager to go in a bit deeper. We check the biggest zoos in the UK (as they are easier to access for us), as well as some places we think could be interesting for the Planet Zoo community on a more global scale. Once we have names we'd like to focus on, I review their animals and messaging to see if they work out with our upcoming plans for Planet Zoo, whilst making sure they feel like a good fit in general. For specific contexts, like working on the Conservation Pack, instead of looking at zoos, we focused more on conservation organizations. We ended up talking to the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) and they suggested working with the Highland Wildlife Park which is home to the Przewalski's Horse and has conservation efforts running for the Scimitar-Horned Oryx. We are excited to welcome them as guests for our launch livestream tomorrow!
So, you've got a project in mind, you've done your research, and you've decided on the best partner and you're really excited to make it happen! But... how do you do that? How do you take it from an idea, to actually making it a reality?
The first step is simply reaching out to them! When I reach out to a partner, I share some general information about the game and let them know we'd be interested in a partnership, I also always offer a first call/meet-up so we can let them know more about Planet Zoo and the gist of our ideas. If they accept and everything goes well, we'll talk in more detail about how we can make it happen. Sometimes our partners also have specific ideas that they'd be keen to work on with us!
Wow, so much happens behind the scenes to pull all of this together, that's incredible! What's been one of the most fun things you've gotten to do with an organization so far?
I really enjoyed working on Capy-cam with Shepreth Wildlife Park! As aardvarks are a very tranquil species, the Shepreth staff invited us to hang out with them for a bit before filming the keeper talk. This was definitely a lovely experience and I think we all fell in love with this species after our visit to Shepreth.
These partner relationships aren't just for research though! Planet Zoo has always tried our best to make sure we're supporting conservation efforts and education, both in and out of our game. For those who maybe don't know, why don't you give us some examples?
Every time we work with a zoo, it's in the context of donating money for their charity. For example, the budget used with the San Diego Wildlife Alliance was a donation to their conservation and education efforts! You also probably know all of our streams with zoos were charity streams to support their work. Regarding the education aspect, we also make sure that every activity we do with a zoo also has a strong education value for you, our beloved PlanZo fam! For example, our keeper talks throughout Capy-cam have given a lot of information about various species found in Planet Zoo and our previous streams with Chester Zoo and San Diego were all about learning more about a zookeeper's life and the important work a zoo does!
And that's about all we have time for! Let's all give a warm welcome and giant thank you to Rachel for joining us for the first time, we hope you enjoyed this insight into the inner workings of Planet Zoo!
There's not long left to wait as the Planet Zoo: Conservation Pack launches tomorrow, 21 June!
Are you as excited as we are? Make sure you don't miss a second by heading over to Steam and wishlisting now!
It's almost time for the Planet Zoo: Conservation Pack! We hope you've been having a fun time working as interns for our Planet Zookeeper, Steve, over on our social media. If you aren't sure what we're talking about then come join in the educational fun over on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook! There's not long left until the Pack launches on 21 June but, before that, we're back with another developer journal for you all.
Today we're joined by Rachel Maarek (they/them), the Product Manager for Planet Zoo, as they tell us all about how we work with zoos and charities, and the ways Planet Zoo has supported conservation efforts ourselves! So, without further ado:
Hayo Rachel! Thanks for joining us here over on the PlanZo forums. Can you introduce yourself to everyone reading this, and let us know a little bit about what you do?
Hi!!
I'm Rachel, the Product Manager on Planet Zoo. I work on the marketing strategy and the supervision of it for the game and its wonderful packs. How it usually goes is that I discuss upcoming pack content with the developer team, then brief the main art, trailers, and screenshots to the creative team and present the strategy to our many amazing teams! Once this is done, I review and discuss the visuals and plans while they're being created and just make sure everything aligns with the quality and messages of Planet Zoo. I am usually considered the "main marketing contact" specific to the title, whether it's internally, or with our partners. I usually review these developer journals, too, so it feels so strange and touching to be part of one!
In our last developer journal, we were joined by Josh and Victor, where we learned all about how working with partner zoos has benefited the animation team. However, there's much more to it than just that! Why don't you tell us about some of the ways in which we've worked with partners before?
We have worked with a few zoos now, and we've done different things with each! Our first partner was the San Diego Wildlife Alliance, and we invited influencers and journalists to visit the gorgeous animals there, sponsored signage at the zoo, and had our community team at the time interview their staff during special streams as well! We have also worked with Chester Zoo and supported them during lockdown with a special charity stream, and gifted adoption kits of their lovely meerkats during the campaign for the exciting Africa Pack. Lastly, we have very recently been able to work with the Shepreth Wildlife Park for our Capy-Cam charity stream, which was such a joy to work on! You might remember it since it was so recent, but staying the whole day in the company of these lovely animals and getting to hear all this precious information from the zookeepers was a wonderful experience.
That's amazing! But with so many amazing zoos, charities, and organizations, it must be difficult to know where to start. How is it that you go about deciding who to work with?
There is definitely a lot out there! When we look into working with zoos in general, I team up with our PR Manager to go in a bit deeper. We check the biggest zoos in the UK (as they are easier to access for us), as well as some places we think could be interesting for the Planet Zoo community on a more global scale. Once we have names we'd like to focus on, I review their animals and messaging to see if they work out with our upcoming plans for Planet Zoo, whilst making sure they feel like a good fit in general. For specific contexts, like working on the Conservation Pack, instead of looking at zoos, we focused more on conservation organizations. We ended up talking to the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) and they suggested working with the Highland Wildlife Park which is home to the Przewalski's Horse and has conservation efforts running for the Scimitar-Horned Oryx. We are excited to welcome them as guests for our launch livestream tomorrow!
So, you've got a project in mind, you've done your research, and you've decided on the best partner and you're really excited to make it happen! But... how do you do that? How do you take it from an idea, to actually making it a reality?
The first step is simply reaching out to them! When I reach out to a partner, I share some general information about the game and let them know we'd be interested in a partnership, I also always offer a first call/meet-up so we can let them know more about Planet Zoo and the gist of our ideas. If they accept and everything goes well, we'll talk in more detail about how we can make it happen. Sometimes our partners also have specific ideas that they'd be keen to work on with us!
Wow, so much happens behind the scenes to pull all of this together, that's incredible! What's been one of the most fun things you've gotten to do with an organization so far?
I really enjoyed working on Capy-cam with Shepreth Wildlife Park! As aardvarks are a very tranquil species, the Shepreth staff invited us to hang out with them for a bit before filming the keeper talk. This was definitely a lovely experience and I think we all fell in love with this species after our visit to Shepreth.
These partner relationships aren't just for research though! Planet Zoo has always tried our best to make sure we're supporting conservation efforts and education, both in and out of our game. For those who maybe don't know, why don't you give us some examples?
Every time we work with a zoo, it's in the context of donating money for their charity. For example, the budget used with the San Diego Wildlife Alliance was a donation to their conservation and education efforts! You also probably know all of our streams with zoos were charity streams to support their work. Regarding the education aspect, we also make sure that every activity we do with a zoo also has a strong education value for you, our beloved PlanZo fam! For example, our keeper talks throughout Capy-cam have given a lot of information about various species found in Planet Zoo and our previous streams with Chester Zoo and San Diego were all about learning more about a zookeeper's life and the important work a zoo does!
And that's about all we have time for! Let's all give a warm welcome and giant thank you to Rachel for joining us for the first time, we hope you enjoyed this insight into the inner workings of Planet Zoo!
There's not long left to wait as the Planet Zoo: Conservation Pack launches tomorrow, 21 June!
Are you as excited as we are? Make sure you don't miss a second by heading over to Steam and wishlisting now!
