Crappy Marketing

^considering that almost every year they print the Golden Ticket award on the front of every brochure they have, the fact that its posted on the front page of their website, and the fact that it's in most of their commericals and print advertising would lead me to believe that yes, guests are actually familiar with the Golden Ticket, they may not know all of the details, but they can certainly associate CP with the Golden Ticket award.

And you'd be surprised at how big of a name ACE has.

halltd said:
Also, I'm not sure why everyone thinks CP has some tiny marketing budget. Did you see how much effort they put into the Maverick website alone?

Well seeing as how I earned some of that money doing the video for it, yeah, I have a pretty good idea. The park annually advertises with CoasterBuzz too, which is no secret since you can see the ads. It's my job to figure out what they're spending on so I can pitch my site and services appropriately. I'm not convinced it's a huge budget.

No one is claiming Cedar Point is hurting for visitors. But, I see no harm in discussing ways they could produce better marketing to bring in even more people.

Is this thread just a dream? Looks like it's being discussed to me.

The point is, the market is tapped. There will always be the fluctuations in that 3-3.5 million guest range, but that's all there is. I'll be the first to admit that some of the stuff their agency puts out is crap, but I'm not convinced that throwing money at it for something "better" will have any measurable impact or ROI.

loneranger7281 said:
ACE is one of them. Having ace members knowing the park exists is a pyramid effect. They have the media days for new rides. I don't know if those are free though.

Perhaps in the minds of ACE members, but not in real life.

Tennessee_CP_Fan said:
No one has mentioned this, but has Cedar Fair ever done any advertising as a whole and included all the parks, or does each park advertise individually. When I was first introduced to CP, I didn't know that it was owned by CF and that CF owned other parks.

Given the regional nature of the parks, there's little point in doing so. "Cedar Fair" isn't even a brand, it's the combination of "Cedar Point" and "Valleyfair" so they could pin a name to the ticker symbol. (And the fact that they try to use it as a brand to me is a mistake.)

This is not to say they haven't used some level of synergy. I don't know if you saw the "thrill seeker" TV ad or whatever it was called (that was a great ad), but there were variations cut for some of the other parks as well.

Jeff said:

Besides, this whole discussion is predicated on the idea that they're not meeting their attendance goals, and we don't know that.

I don't know if CP's attendance figures for 2007 have been announced yet (or if they have, what they are), but I know that attendance has seen a dip each season since 2003. (Through 2006, anyway.)

I'm pretty sure that means that their attendance goals are not being met. Regardless of ecominic position, no business has a goal to attract less cutomers than the previous year, especially an amusement park.

I totally agree with your points of advertising though. I don't think any different form of advertising will help them get more people through the gate. Instead they should focus on customer service.

Every time there is a quaterly release of company results, its always something to the affect of X dollars increase in revenue on Y number less attendance offset by Z dollars increase in per capita guest spending. In my opinion, this is a trumped-up way of saying: "Were making more money on the less and less people that keep coming by price gouging the hell out of them."

I know its been beat to death on here but they really need to change this practice. It may be working for now but in the long term it will do nothing but damage CP. They know their dealing with a crappy economy, so push value. I know they tried that approach in 2006 but not in the right way. I don't think they have to go as far as offering free pop but lowering food prices to even or below industry trends and reducing other guest expenditures (parking, vending, etc.) will result in more guests.

I'm no amusement park executive but I think that more people through the gates spending a little less per capita has to be better for the overall bottom line.

Like you said above, Jeff, I know they're not hurting but I think they're not going to see growth until they change these practices.

I agree with you, and I've been saying for years that they can't indefinitely keep relying on a rise in per capita spending. I think we talk about it on the podcast at least once a month (though Gonch disagrees with me).

A decrease in attendance doesn't mean they're missing a goal necessarily. You can't expect to have bigger numbers the year after you build a Millennium Force or Dragster. I heard some preliminary speculation before the end of this season that they'd beat last year's numbers. Whether or not they met their goal or budget is beyond me, and we'll not likely ever know.

The other variable is the mix of passholders and one-day visits. The Paramount Parks were heavily season pass dependent, and it afforded them huge attendance counts. However, that brings down the average gate quite a bit, since you don't get anything more (at the gate) when they make multiple visits. They'd try to make it up on the inside of the park.

That's where the execs screwed up in the acquisition, because they came in and tried to kill that model, and it bit them in the ass. You can't just change what the market is accustomed to.

Regardless, my point is that more visitors doesn't automatically make more money.

Even if more visitors doesn't always equal more profit, that doesn't mean they should create crappy ads.

Craig's original comment was about the ads not being very good. I think the bigger issue here is quality of the ads - not their impact on attendance. It seems lately that every single topic comes back to ROI which is really annoying. I think most people realize CP only has a certain amount of ad money and ads only bring in so many people. We get that.

I think it would be a refreshing change if there was a discussion on here just about ideas. Sure, CP reads the site, but it's not like we're on the payroll trying to come up with cost-effective ways of bringing in more profit to the park.

Last time I checked, this was a fan site. If I wanted to always talk about ROI and profit margins, I would find a staff meeting somewhere to talk about it. LOL! I liked coming here to talk about Cedar Point as a true fan; to discuss cool ride ideas, interesting trivia, history, rumors, construction updates, creative ideas for park ads, etc... Lately, it seems like no one can even try to bring up a "fun" discussion about ideas without it getting shot down with, "that's stupid because it won't make them any more money."

Yes, I also know one of the next replies will be, "well if you don't like it, stop coming here." So, you can save that too. I'm just saying, it would be nice to forget about money every once in a while on here. On a fan website, money isn't the bottom line...our love of coasters, parks and Cedar Point is.

Yes, if you don't like it, stop coming here. Does this thread look closed to you?

Are you suggesting now that ads serve no purpose but to entertain?

I would never suggest ads serve no purposes but to entertain because I know better. I'm not sure how you got that from my post, but whatever.

Tim, it would seem that the reason the business/real world/ROI aspect gets discussed is because, well, its relevant in every aspect. To many here - myself included - these less 'fun' components are not only relevant, but interesting as well. Its easy to say that if they gave away free mopeds with every ticket, attendance would increase. But that's not relevant, because it won't ever happen. Just like we'd never see them suddenly triple their ad budget.

I understand what you're saying, however - there are neat ideas to be discussed that don't necessarily fit within the realm of 'reality', regardless of how interesting or novel they might be. And just because some - again, myself included - point out that they don't make any sense from a business/real world/ROI perspective, doesn't mean that those ideas aren't found interesting or intriguing or whatever.

I suppose it comes down to simply accepting that such unrealistic concepts will be discredited, regardless of how 'neat', 'awesome' or 'groovy' they are. And just because that happens doesn't mean they aren't valued, on some level.
*** Edited 12/14/2007 7:17:47 PM UTC by djDaemon***

^Jeff you brought up a good point that I didn't even consider or think about with regards to season pass holders and raw attendance numbers.

I'm a season pass holder who visits on average about 30 times per season. 12 of these (about four 3-day trips per year) are resort stays, in which case they bank off of me and my group because we're the type that stay on-point the whole time and spend all our money there.

The other 18, though, are 1-day trips where we barely spend $20.00 all day. So I see what you mean by raw attendance not necessarily bringing in more revenue.

^Wow, 12 times at the resorts. You're not kidding about them banking off of you. You might very well be the park's favorite season passer. :)

Any marketing guru or novice knows a good product markets itself.

You'll never see blockbuster movies advertised on TV, only the ones that producers thought would be blockbusters, but are turning out to be only busters. Therefore the marketers say spend money to make money in a last ditch effort to recover costs.

Rides like Mav & TTD sell themselves, the lines and waits for rides prove it out. Why spend $$ for marketing when it is not needed? (marketing 101 at any university teaches the same lesson)

^I highly disagree that a roller coaster will sell itself.

^^I would agree...but there's a catch to that. The guests have to be at the park before they get to the ride, so the ride not only has to sell itself, it also has to sell the park to get the guests there if you're going that route.

Not to mention that in the world of marketing, getting the word out is one of the biggest challenges, simply because most of the time, making the assumption that a product will sell itself means making the assumption also that the product will generate profit with absolutely no push from the company that put it out there in the first place.

TTD was sold through the early publicity it recieved, as its construction was started early on when the park was still open, generating buzz. Now this may not have been planned by the park in terms of marketing, but it certainly worked out for them.

Maverick was sold well through online marketing, CP's use of the Maverick website, as well as its one of a kind press kits got the word out there, even when Maverick couldn't open on time, the buzz was still there a month later, even stronger than it was before.

The point being that Cedar Point chooses not to assume that the rides will sell the park, rather, getting the word out before the season begins through creative marketing tools will not only generate buzz, but give the ride a stronger opening rather than just opening the gates next May and saying: oh by the way, we built this new ride.

acrossthelake said:
You'll never see blockbuster movies advertised on TV, only the ones that producers thought would be blockbusters, but are turning out to be only busters.

Yeah I never saw Pirates of the Caribbean or any of the recent Disney/Pixar movies advertised on TV. Come to think of it, I haven't seen any of the Bournes advertised either. :rolleyes:

You're kidding right?

Even the hottest selling products are advertised all over the place. How many iPod or iPhone ads do you see on TV? How about McDonald's? Wal-Mart? Popular items may "sell themselves", but I've never seen a popular product not advertised before.

I agree with halltd, you still have to market your product. Anyone who doesn't properly market what they have to be sold will be sold eventually. Marketing 101.

Has anyone her actually taken Marketing 101?

Didn't realize that was a pre-requisite to joining in this discussion Jeff, but personally, yes I have.

^Gomez,

I know my wording was a little confusing but what I meant by resorts stays was that we make about four 3-day trips each year. Opening weekend, Coastermania, Joe Cool homecoming, and closing weekend. Each trip entails a 2 night resort stay and 3 days of entering the park, except for opening weekend because they aren't open the Friday before but resorts are.

As far as marketing goes and products that "sell themselves" there is still always one very important point to consider: You could have the best product in the world but how do you expect to sell if no one knows about it? Hence the need for marketing.

Scott Cameron said:
You could have the best product in the world but how do you expect to sell if no one knows about it? Hence the need for marketing.

Haha, that is almost word for word what my Business Foundations textbook had in one of the marketing sub-sections.

My prof for that class was the former president of a medium size business (Zion Industries, I believe it was), and specialized in marketing, so everyone in the class got hammered on the marketing segment of our business plan this past semester. Absolutely brutal, and I learned quite a bit as a result.