Modern Insider – Online Marketing Blog

This weekend I visited California’s Great Adventure, a theme park I grew up knowing as Paramount’s Great America. While my experience was fun and I’ll be returning at least a few times this summer thanks to my new season pass, it was disappointing to see the general lack of maintenance and upkeep the park has received over the past few years. More importantly, the feel / experience / magic the park had when I visited years ago was all but gone — dried up and replaced with cheap paint jobs and cobwebs. What the park was doing seemed to cover the basics and probably turned a profit but the customer experience just wasn’t there. Of course in turn the place felt empty on what was a nice, early-summer day… without the exceptional customer experience there was nothing to draw on and no deal or marketing campaign was able to get beyond that for Great America or a website for that matter…

This weekend I visited California’s Great Adventure, a theme park I grew up knowing as Paramount’s Great America. While my experience was fun and I’ll be returning at least a few times this summer thanks to my new season pass, it was disappointing to see the general lack of maintenance and upkeep the park has received over the past few years. More importantly, the feel / experience / magic the park had when I visited years ago was all but gone — dried up and replaced with cheap paint jobs and cobwebs. What the park was doing seemed to cover the basics and probably turned a profit but the customer experience just wasn’t there. Of course in turn the place felt empty on what was a nice, early-summer day… without the exceptional customer experience there was nothing to draw on and no deal or marketing campaign was able to get beyond that for Great America or a website for that matter…

So you may be asking yourself, how this relates to the internet and online marketing in any way shape or form. Well I assure you, I’ll get to that and this will all make sense, but first a little more ranting. For those not familiar with the geography, Great America is 400 miles or so from Disneyland so while it’s not in the same competitive market, it’s close enough that just about everyone who goes there has been to what I would consider the best theme park in California.

There’s certainly a major difference between Disneyland-type parks and Great America from a price point. Disneyland costs anywhere from $70-$90 for a single day, Great America is a little over half that. A low-end Disneyland pass is about $100 for local residents and near $400 for the top pass with parking, Great America is $65-$75 with parking included. So clearly we’re not comparing equals for the consumer’s wallet but since Great America is only open part of the year, it’s really not a ton cheaper day per day. And speaking of the operating season – Disneyland manages to keep their park up 365 from 7 or 8am – 12pm a good portion of the year and it’s in fairly amazing condition. Great America is closed for month’s worth of time so I can’t see any reason why they’d be unable to do maintenance. 

Ok, so now that the stage is set and the facts lay out, let’s dive into the real meat here. In my opinion as a very frequent theme park visitor and in poking around today, the owners of Great America have decided to build out new attractions with less than full upkeep, minimal staff, especially in the early part of the season. The focus they sell in the marketing and their implicit message through letting conditions sit as they are – this is a place for [relatively] cheap thrills and at the end of the day, you get what you get — don’t expect magic or to be thrilled, expect to get on a ride or two dozen.

Of course there’s nothing wrong with that attitude, not if you want to run a park that appeals to people looking for the best deal, the cheapest price and the most basic experience. But let’s be honest here — companies aren’t generally in business to capture the low end of any market unless it’s more profitable than the high end (and since in theme parks you can often get both, that’s really not likely to be the case here). Disneyland, the top Six Flags Properties and Universal all work to have a strong emotional attraction for a reason – it drives more sales.

Cedar Fair Entertainment, the company that recently acquired Great America from Paramount, has expressed their intent to invest something like $14 million into the park over a couple of years. But from what I read that was promised starting in 2007, so assuming they’ve started the work (which seems reasonable since a full winter season has passed since the announcement), there’s either not enough money to get things up to par or they’re just very slow about getting things done. Either way, $14 million seems like a drop in the bucket when you consider that the 4 parks they picked up went for over $1.2 billion or an average of $350 million per park.  But hey, it’s a start.

So chances are you don’t run a theme park (and if you run one or if you happen to work for Cedar Fair Entertainment drop me a line – I’d love to chat) so how do you take the same lesson from this experience and apply it to your own business? Well, it’s really rather simple. Many companies operate older sites because they can’t “justify” an upgrade and even if you don’t have something old, chances are there are parts you cut corners on. When you think about site’s experience and the cost associated with upgrading it you have to look beyond the immediate return it brings. Just about every company has learned how to make a website work now, just as Great America is likely making some level of profit because their park “works”. But that doesn’t mean you should stop improving experience just because it covers the costs. Going from a decent return to a suburb return almost always means getting repeat customers and a strong, well received brand that people are willing to share in a positive light. So you want to – no strike that – you need to constantly push your brand beyond the “acceptable” point to gain market share. Settling for something that works means constantly losing sales, losing customers and harming your name, things which few companies can afford in a consumer driven, information sharing age.

I’ll go to Great America as long as it’s safe, has a working restroom and fun rides (although a decent coffee shop may be a requirement to get me there in the mornings) just as I’ll buy a pair of pants from Dockers.com this year (no dig on Dockers, it’s just a site that I use because their product is a must have to me, must like a theme park is something I’ll almost certainly visit). But that doesn’t mean both companies couldn’t get more from me – both in my purchases, my loyalty and my direct word of mouth referrals. Indeed Dockers is probably a great example because they are so much the opposite of Great America. They acknowledge that while they’re a major staple, they also have competitors and have something to gain from a great experience so their website is always changing and evolving. It’s not perfectly matched to my needs but with each change it addresses them better, heck, sometimes they fill a need I didn’t even know I had – like letting me shop 4 stores at once.

Dockers also has take the time to play into the interactive and emotional portion of my time experience on their site, much in the same way Great America could be playing into the magic or family or just plain old great time experience associated with a theme park. When you put short term profit ahead of the customer’s experience, you lose the opportunity to gain the bigger value. There’s no doubt the numbers have to work out – my thoughts for Great America would involve tens more millions in upgrades and even more in partnerships, marketing campaigns and promotions. But what if they worked? What if Great America was able to regrow its brand to compete on the same level of Disneyland as a local and tourist super destination? Ticket prices can go up. So can concessions, photos and merchandise sales. More customers walk through the gate, more cars get in the parking lot and more businesses start to fight to be in on the action. What’s the value of a mere 10% incremental increase in new visitors and another 10% in visitor frequency for repeat guests over the next 5 years? Far more than the investment, that’s for sure.

I understand that it’s hard to sell this value up the chain. Heck, I’ve been there working on an old site, trying to get people in the organization to see that while the results are great, they can be better, much, much better. And of course an executive team or board should be asking for projections and numbers which may be very, very difficult to come up with. However when you sit back and really think about it, how much of a result do you really need to justify the expense. Even if all you can do is even out your costs by promising a few point lift in sales isn’t that enough when you consider the long-term value of having more engaged customers? You don’t have to assume the best case scenario for most upgrades and you don’t have to reach for the stars to get a good response from customers either. In most cases you can play things fairly tight and still see an amazing response.

Think of what happens if Great America only went so far as to clean up, touch up, and a few new high-traffic / desirable restaurants and a moderate amount of themeing centered around the “American” concept. No it wouldn’t be cheap but again, the traffic is so big with so many visits that you just don’t need a ton to get it paid for and as things grow, the door opens to improve even further. Of course I’d prefer going for a slightly bigger splash – overhauling the site instead of just adding on new modules in the web world, or putting a real themed experience in place for the Great America example but even that makes sense from all degrees. It’s not just about spending to spend; it’s about spending to reflect your brand in the way you know it should be reflected because that’s what gets customers talking and shopping.

Think about it. Disney has had ups and downs over the decades but the parks aren’t getting any cheaper or less crowded. And while the experience there isn’t all magic and isn’t always perfect, they’ve put the money in to making a damn good impression that makes millions of people feel something you just don’t get at Great America – what’s the real cost of not trying to create your own Disneyland type success when you know that’s exactly where your competitors want to be?

P.S. Not related to marketing but to the park its self and just to be extra clear on this one – I’d still highly recommend a visit and I’m happy the parent company is putting money into the place. This post isn’t meant to trash the experience in the least — but rather to illustrate how investing into it can bring a lot more return down the line.