Are Theme Parks Just A Marketing Tool For Studios?
Reflect on your last theme park visit with a marketing lens. There are pretty much endless ways that a Universal or Disney family vacation becomes a major marketing score for the respective companies. Aside from paying for your vacation necessities (actual theme park tickets, resort reservations, and food and drinks during your stay) you prep for the trip with Disney t-shirts to wear to the park, you end up buying bags full of merch, and the whole time you are having an immersive experience of purely Disney or Universal intellectual property.
Take a deeper dive into just how branded a theme park experience is, and how these companies have taken advantage of these very successful opportunities. In this blog, Hollywood Branded discusses how theme parks offer extremely unique and lucrative marketing opportunities.
Let's Define "Theme Park"
Amusement parks owned by Six Flags, Cedar Fair, and other amusement park operators generally do not prioritize theming but rather simply try to create the biggest thrills and highest drops. Parks like Universal Studios, meanwhile, which does have some coasters and thrills, makes sure that a visitor’s entire experience is highly themed and immersive, making it a theme park.
You Become Immersed In The Branding
Disney definitely ensures that there is some form of Disney branding in your sight pretty much constantly as you spend a day at one of their parks. Almost every ride features characters or storylines from Disney intellectual property (IP), there are hundreds of pieces of merchandise available for purchase, and no matter where you stop to take photos there is surely a hidden Mickey head or an iconic Disney landmark in the background.
There are pretty much endless ways that a Universal or Disney family vacation becomes a major marketing score for the respective companies. Aside from paying for your vacation necessities (actual theme park tickets, resort reservations, and food and drinks during your stay) you prep for the trip with Disney t-shirts to wear to the park, you end up buying bags full of merch, and the whole time you are having an immersive experience of purely Disney or Universal IP. Trying the blue milk at Galaxy’s Edge might make someone finally sit down to watch the Star Wars franchise or having an interaction with a Donkey animatronic might get a visitor to watch Shrek. It pretty much goes without saying, too, that watching Frozen for the umpteenth time might be what gets a family to finally take the trip to Epcot to ride Frozen Ever After or that going to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal is the dream of every Harry Potter fan.
The Flexibility Of Marketing With Films and Theme Parks
For Disney, park attractions are made based on existing films, but also vice versa. For example, the film The Haunted Mansion was released in 2003, based on the classic Disney attraction of the same name (a live action remake is also set to be released in the next few years). Also, Sleeping Beauty's Castle had its original debut at Disneyland in 1955, with the film not even coming out for another four years. With thousands of visitors with photos in front of the giant castle already in their scrapbooks, they immediately would feel obligated to see the film when it was released.
Creating With Confidence
Given the cost of designing and constructing a theme park ride, companies like Universal and Disney can’t risk a fail. So, they use their most popular intellectual property that they can count on to draw huge crowds.
The new Star Wars-themed land at the Disneyland and Walt Disney World resorts, Galaxy’s Edge, though not bringing in the record-breaking attendance statistics that may have been expected, is still bringing in a ton of revenue. How? Star Wars fans are proving to be willing to spend extra cash during their visit to Galaxy’s Edge. Through creating unique experiences like building your own lightsaber, creating droids, and dining at restaurants with specialty Batuu cuisines, Disney has created a pricey full experience (though it is entirely worth it!!).
Avengers Campus, a Marvel Cinematic Universe themed land at Disney’s California Adventure, opens this summer. This land will surely have similar opportunities for build-on experiences for the Marvel superfans. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal has the same power and has been a huge success for as long as it has been open. Since Disney and Universal’s fans are generally die-hard fans, many guests are willing to invest even more money in getting the most special experience possible. So really, theme parks are a no-brainer.
Disney has managed to collect some of the most successful film studios (Marvel Studios, Pixar, Lucasfilm, 20th Century, etc) and have successfully turned lots of this adopted IP into some of its most popular lands, attractions, and experiences while Universal has done the same with Dreamworks and Illumination titles and characters.
The Happiest Place On Earth (More Like The Most Lucrative!)
Theme parks have the unique ability to make parkgoers'’ favorite films come to life in the most immersive way possible. Going to a theme park can be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for many fans, for others it is a family tradition, but for companies like Universal and Disney, it is an unbeatable marketing effort. It works in both directions, with movie fans coming to see their favorite characters at the park and parkgoers discovering something new that they go home to watch later. With hundreds of stores filled with merchandise, themed hotels, and crazy dining experiences all on the park property, your trip is completely themed and makes you more obsessed and excited about Universal or Disney IPs and brands.
Entertainment Marketing Never Stops -- We Can Help You Keep Up!
With new technology and marketing techniques, theme parks get crazier and crazier (and bigger and bigger!) by the year. When the next big film franchise by Disney or Universal dominates the box office, a theme park ride will surely crop up shortly thereafter. Here are more blogs that cover the success stories of studios using their intellectual property in awesome ways to promote their work.
- Lionsgate To Open New Studio Based Theme Park
- Case Study On How Movie Product Placement Sells A Brand
- Studio Properties As A Form Of Product Placement
- What The Disney-Fox Deal Means For Hollywood
- The World of The Fast & The Furious Franchise and Brand Partnerships
If you’re interested in how product placement works in the entertainment industry, take a moment to check out our Product Placement 101 guide. Click on the link below.
