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0:00:13.1 Chris Ronan: Hey everybody. Welcome to Inside Geocaching HQ, the podcast about what is happening at HQ in Seattle. I am Chris Ronan. My geocaching username is Rock Chalk. And today I am happy to share a conversation with Genevieve from HQ’s marketing team. She is part of the group here at HQ that has produced the Cosmic Quest Souvenir Promotion. From July 22nd until September 1st, you can help our friends from outer space just by geocaching. Let’s hear more about it right now.

0:00:52.7 CR: Okay. So Genevieve is here and we are talking about the Cosmic Quest souvenir promotion that is happening beginning July 22nd. And before we get into that, of course we’ll remind everybody of who you are. I think the last time we talked here with the podcast was probably maybe the last souvenir promotion, probably around this time last year. So for people that maybe didn’t listen to that or just need a refresher, what is your work here at HQ, your title and what kind of stuff you do on a day-to-day basis, besides being an intermediary for lifeform in outer space?

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0:01:29.7 Genevieve: Yes. So I work on the marketing team here at HQ and I help put together the newsletters that our geocachers get in their inbox monthly or weekly. And I also help with souvenir promotions like Cosmic Quest, last year’s Wheel of Challenges, and then a number of other things, supporting the marketing team. But the big one is the communication pieces with the newsletter and the blog, and then souvenir promotions.

0:02:02.9 CR: So people may not realize it, but you are in their ear quite a bit in a variety ways.

0:02:06.7 Genevieve: Yeah. If you read the blog, you’ve probably seen my name as a byline a few times.

0:02:13.6 CR: Right. And so at some point it appears that you helped to decipher this message that was received, right?

0:02:21.4 Genevieve: Yes.

0:02:21.6 CR: From these lifeforms who were on Mars and they spotted something. So explain it for people that haven’t read the blog. What’s happening with Cosmic Quest?

0:02:37.1 Genevieve: So as some geocachers may know geocaching does have a limited presence in outer space. We’ve got a trackable on the Mars Rover and you know that trackables always say like, discover on geocaching.com. So that got them curious. They did a little research.

0:02:55.7 CR: They fired up their web connection.

0:02:57.2 Genevieve: Exactly. Got on a browser and they came to learn what geocaching was and got really excited because they have a passion for exploration, for discovery, which ties right in with geocaching.

0:03:11.7 CR: Sure.

0:03:12.7 Genevieve: And so they decided it’s time to come to the game board for geocaching planet Earth. So they came, they’re in touch with us and…

0:03:23.6 CR: Well, they’re in touch with you specifically, it sounds like.

0:03:25.8 Genevieve: Specifically. Yes.

0:03:27.5 CR: Yeah.

0:03:28.8 Genevieve: I’m the point person for communications with our friends from outer space. And they’re traveling around the planet finding as many geocaches as they can. The tricky piece is though that on this journey they’re on, they’re realizing that their spaceship that they’re traveling in is running out of fuel.

0:03:48.1 CR: Well, that’s a problem.

0:03:48.3 Genevieve: That is a problem. And of course, we wanna do anything we can to support their exploration, their continued exploration.

0:03:57.0 CR: Of course.

0:03:57.1 Genevieve: We’re having a great time building intergalactic friendship with them.

0:04:00.0 CR: Sure.

0:04:03.0 Genevieve: So it turns out that we can actually help them. The fuel that their spaceship runs on is positive energy. And what better way is there to generate positive energy than going out and geocaching with your friends with new geocachers, experienced ones. That’s a great way to have a good time and that good time that can fuel the spaceship.

0:04:27.6 CR: Man, it would be so great if all of our modes of transportation ran on positive energy.

0:04:35.0 Genevieve: It really would.

0:04:35.1 CR: That could be fueled by geocaching, wouldn’t it? So this works out great. So July 22nd…

0:04:44.6 Genevieve: Yes.

0:04:44.7 CR: Is when this begins. And it goes through September 1st. So we have a limited time to fuel the spaceship. And how are we gonna go about doing that?

0:04:54.2 Genevieve: That’s a great question. So we’re trying to…

0:04:57.3 CR: 15 million units.

0:04:57.4 Genevieve: Exactly.

0:04:57.7 CR: Of fuel, by the way.

0:04:58.9 Genevieve: Yeah.

0:05:00.8 CR: Which, is there a conversion for gallons or is that litres?

0:05:02.5 Genevieve: The units that they use, they’re just so foreign to us.

0:05:06.9 CR: We just called it unit.

0:05:07.4 Genevieve: That we can’t quite convert, yeah.

0:05:08.9 CR: Sure. Well, that makes sense. Okay. So 15 million units of fuel.

0:05:11.7 Genevieve: Exactly.

0:05:12.3 CR: How do we get to that number?

0:05:15.6 Genevieve: So geocaching, so any finds, they are going to count towards fueling the spaceship. And so different types of geocaching finds or activities, they will generate varying amounts of fuel. So activating a trackable, for instance, that will generate one unit of fuel. Attending an event, and so logging your attended log, posting that log for the event, that will be three units of fuel. And then receiving a favorite point on an owned geocache that will be two units of fuel, which means that also if you give a favorite point, then that’s two units that the person is getting for their individual score, but it’s also two units for the whole community.

0:06:05.8 CR: Sure. Yeah.

0:06:06.4 Genevieve: Because we’re counting those units for the global geocaching community that we’re all working towards together to have that total. And then finding an EarthCache, logging that Found It for an EarthCache, that is five units of fuel and an adventure location or any other type of Found It Log for a geocache that’s just a single unit of fuel. And so we’ll get out, we’ll be geocaching and posting those logs for our finds, and that’s what will help fuel the spaceship.

0:06:40.3 CR: And how do we, how do people keep track of that, like the overall effort to get to 15 million units? Where do we keep track of that?

0:06:50.2 Genevieve: So we’ll be able to keep track of it on the leaderboard. So the leaderboard typically just has that point total that you see for what you individually are achieving on the leaderboard, how many points you have. But during Cosmic Quest, in addition to your individual point total will also have a total for the whole geocaching community. So that’s what we’ll keep our eyes on to see the numbers go up and reach that 15 million goal. And something to note as we’re checking that leaderboard every day, hoping we get closer to 15 million, is that it just updates once a day. So we’ll be able to see every day how many more units of fuel we have since the day before. And with that updating once a day, just so you’re not surprised on the first day, the total is probably gonna be zero, but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t out geocaching. It’s just because the time that it updates is the time that the campaign starts.

0:07:57.9 CR: Right.

0:07:58.5 Genevieve: So make sure to check again on Tuesday, if you want to see how many units of fuel are generated in that first day of the campaign.

0:08:07.0 CR: And yeah, so if you, at any time during the promotion, if you look at 10 o’clock in the morning and it has one number, don’t expect to come back at 9 o’clock at night and see a different number.

0:08:19.3 Genevieve: Exactly.

0:08:20.7 CR: It’s very most likely going to be the same number until the next day. So I guess this is a little bit of a different situation in that you got this communication, it just kind of fell in your lap. And we had a, but normally when we’re thinking about a souvenir promotion, something like Wheel of Challenges, for instance, which I think was strictly from us, there were no…

0:08:42.1 Genevieve: Yeah, we did not…

0:08:43.2 CR: There was nobody from outside.

0:08:44.3 Genevieve: Our satellites did not pick up anything for that one, that just came from us.

0:08:47.8 CR: So let’s talk about ones like that. So how far in advance are you thinking about, the marketing team, I’m sure it’s a variety of people that work and other people in the company. You can talk about who all it is, but how far in advance are you thinking about how what one of these is going to look like and what the goals are going to be and stuff like that?

0:09:09.4 Genevieve: Yeah. So in one way we’re always thinking about it because we’re always trying to make sure we capture any ideas we have throughout the year where we think, Oh, that might be something that’s a fun idea for a souvenir promotion. Or if we hear from the community ideas that they have, we always wanna take note of that. So we’re always thinking about it. But then the really kind of concrete planning depending on when a souvenir promotion will take place, it probably starts in the fall. So honestly, not too long after Cosmic Quest wraps up, we’ll be thinking about whatever comes next. Usually we try to have maybe six months, ideally maybe even a little more of time to really sit down and think through what we wanna do, and then all the time to build it with the community team, the marketing team, engineers, really, a lot of teams here at HQ come together to work on these.

0:10:07.3 CR: Right. And besides our motivation to help with these 15 million units of fuel, we also maybe have some personal motivations as far as souvenirs. So what all can people get for themselves besides the altruistic side of this?

0:10:27.9 Genevieve: Yeah, so there are two souvenirs that players, geocachers, can earn based on their individual generation of fuel. So if if a geocacher on their own, contributes 20 units of fuel, which is the same as 20 leaderboard points, they will get the Super Fuel Cacher souvenir. And if on their own they contribute 100 units of fuel, they will get the Ultra Fuel Cacher souvenir. So those are two that anyone can achieve on their own based on how much they go out and geocache and generate fuel. And then there’s also a souvenir that everyone who participates in Cosmic Quest will earn if, when we reach that 15 million units of fuel goal. So that is the third souvenir.

0:11:25.4 CR: And there is also an opportunity at Shop Geocaching. I see there’s some cool stuff that’s out there related to Cosmic Quest. A lot of neat items there too.

0:11:35.8 Genevieve: Yes. Yeah. The shop and our creative team put in a lot of thought into how to celebrate Cosmic Quest with different trackables and fun items. My personal favorite is the trackable collection where you see six of our friends from outer space, six different kind of characters there. You can get to know them and send them out on their own trackable adventures. We’ve also got really fun kind of stickers with the spaceship and other images and illustrations we have for Cosmic Quest, some geocoins that are quite nice if I do say so myself. I’ve got one on my desk that I admire every day and a bunch of other cool items including cache containers. Yeah, there’s a lot of fun stuff that we’ve got for Cosmic Quest there.

0:12:27.2 CR: Yeah. Which one do you have on your desk? I’m curious now ’cause I’m looking at the…

0:12:29.4 Genevieve: I have the Cosmic Quest kind of logo one.

0:12:33.3 CR: Oh yeah, yeah.

0:12:35.6 Genevieve: It has a very nice finish. It really does. A nice weight in the hand I gotta say, it’s one I’m gonna be holding onto, I think.

0:12:42.6 CR: Yeah, I was looking at the the 3D UFO geocoin is pretty cute.

0:12:47.8 Genevieve: Yeah, that one’s cool.

0:12:48.7 CR: Oh, my wallet’s gonna get lighter again. Okay. So again, just to kinda reiterate, July 22nd is when this thing starts, and then it continues through September 1st. And I don’t want to think about what happens if we don’t get enough fuel. I mean, I guess they’re stuck on, they’d be stuck on Mars.

0:13:10.6 Genevieve: They might be stuck.

0:13:11.6 CR: Is there a backup plan here or are we just… This is just it?

0:13:15.3 Genevieve: Well, I have great confidence, first of all, in the global geocaching community.

0:13:18.8 CR: I can tell that. Yeah, I can tell that. I do too. I’m just trying to, I’m the kind of person that…

0:13:22.8 Genevieve: But no, that’s a fair question.

0:13:24.2 CR: I’m the kind of person that tries to think in, Okay, what if, you know? So, I don’t know.

0:13:29.6 Genevieve: Yeah. So were hoping we’ll hit that goal of by September 1st to hit 15 million, but if we don’t, we can still continue to geocache and generate positive energy, give that as fuel. So maybe we’ll see if there’s a little longer tail to Cosmic Quest. Also, the really, the big win for Cosmic Quest, though that final souvenir would be nice, it’s the joy of geocaching. It’s getting out there during the month of August and late July and finding caches with other geocachers, and you’ll still be able to get those two souvenirs. So I think there’s a lot to look forward to even if the future is uncertain with that 15 million goal.

0:14:23.3 CR: Are you anticipating any more communication from our friends? I mean, as this goes on, are they keeping an eye on, I mean, they’ve gotta be maybe a mix of anxiety and excitement over, there’s a lot put on geocachers here with this to get them off of Mars there.

0:14:38.5 Genevieve: There is. But our friends from outerspace, they have just fallen so in love with geocaching that even though their fuel is dwindling, they can’t help but be having a good time because…

0:14:52.7 CR: It’s true.

0:14:53.0 Genevieve: They’re just traveling around finding all these cool caches and they are staying in touch with us. They’ve actually been sending us postcards from different geocaches that they’re visiting. So there’s a good chance that they’ll continue to send us some postcards, let us know where they are, what geocaches they’re finding. It’s maybe not the best strategy if they’re trying to keep their fuel usage low, that they’re traveling all around finding geocaching, but they just can’t help but express this passion that they have for the game.

0:15:27.3 CR: I gotta mention that a postcard that they sent us from New Mexico, I’ve actually stayed right outside where that geocache is located, at least when I found it was at a place where a couple of old train cars have been turned into living quarters. So like a kind of a bed and breakfast type of a situation. And a few years back, I stayed there and I didn’t know that there was a cache there until I was about to leave. And the proprietor of the place saw, I think maybe saw a geocaching logo on my shirt or vehicle or whatever, and they said, “Oh, did you know about this geocache?” And somehow I hadn’t loaded it into my GPS or whatever. So yeah, when I saw that postcard, it kind of brought back some memories when I clicked in on the cache that they had found. So kind of maybe feel some kinship with our friends.

0:16:26.3 Genevieve: Oh, that’s so cool.

0:16:27.5 CR: Yeah.

0:16:28.0 Genevieve: Yeah.

0:16:28.4 CR: So. Well, this has been great. I gotta let you go because I know you have to be monitoring.

0:16:34.1 Genevieve: We might get some communications. Yeah. I’ve gotta…

0:16:36.2 CR: Yeah. More postcards.

0:16:36.8 Genevieve: Check those satellites, our mailbox. Yeah.

0:16:40.4 CR: Well, this has been great, and if anybody has questions, where should they go for more information about Cosmic Quest?

0:16:47.5 Genevieve: So the first place to go is our blog because that’s where we’re sharing. We’ve got a big blog post with a lot of FAQs, so that’s a great place to look. And we’ll also have additional blog posts with sharing postcards or other updates. Also our social media, Facebook for geocaching is a great place to look. And if anyone has particular questions related to Cosmic Quest that they’re not seeing answers for, they can always write into us in our help center.

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0:17:20.5 CR: That was Genevieve from the marketing team at Geocaching HQ. You can visit the Geocaching Blog for more details about Cosmic Quest. And if there is something that you would like for us to cover on the podcast, you can send us an email with your suggestion @podcastatgeocaching.com. That is podcast@geocaching.com. For Genevieve and me, and our friends from outerspace and all the lackies at Geocaching HQ, happy caching.