Abstract
Zoos provide an oasis of nature, entertainment and education in our busy world, however zoos are often poor marketers. Zoo marketing has progressed through stages to the use of digital marketing, however this has been mostly limited to a formal display of information on the zoo website and some visitors' personal input such as social media photos or videos of their time at the zoo. However, this decade has marked the progression to a fourth stage, where zoo marketing can now integrate digital enhancement and augmented reality experience for their visitors. This year, the Pokémon Go app conquered smartphones around the world. Many zoo marketers seized this opportunity and used this external app to draw attention to their locations, however few use other digital enhancement. This paper uses case study analysis to compare the use of digital enhancement and augmented reality by zoos in Australia, Germany and Taiwan. Except for two notable exceptions, the analysis identified a huge gap between the Pokémon Go benchmark and the zoos' current mobile applications. Only a minority of the zoos in the selected countries have moved into this next digital stage. The majority of zoos are missing a major opportunity to improve their marketing communication and customer experience.