Amusement Park Advertisements with Roller Coasters Not Actually in Advertised Park

Today on I-465 North (Indianapolis), I noticed a a billboard for Kings Island with the roller coaster Corkscrew from Cedar Point on it. It reminded me how I will see billboards for various amusement parks and television spots that show rides in the advertisement that is not actually in the park being advertised. Has anyone else noticed this before? I'm sure I'm not the first to notice such a thing. Is there some benefit for an amusement park in doing this? I simply don't understand why it's done.

I simply don't understand why it's done.

Because no one cares.

No. One. Cares.

Well, except for enthusiasts I suppose.

Yeah, you're right on that one, no one cares. I should take my enthusiast lenses off, (even though I have never considered myself an enthusiast, perhaps I should reevaluate myself) and think that most people probably never notice such a thing.

Then that means that companies don't intentionally put coasters on advertisements for parks they're not in, because that would imply there was extra effort on their part to do so, which would imply that there's some kind of benefit to it. Since there's no benefit, that means they simply slap whatever roller coaster they want on any random advertisement because it's irrelevant what roller coaster is on what park advertisement. I assume that they at least don't put a coaster from a park they don't even own on one of their park advertisements. That might cause problems.

It's cheaper to shoot one day at Knotts Berry Farm and use that video in every Cedar Fair advertisement then to send a crew to every park in the chain.

That also makes sense.

Or in the case of the billboard or print ad, I imagine it's about what fits the design.

None of these ads say or even really imply that the visuals used represent rides at the park. It's not like they're advertising a roller coaster that doesn't exist. They're advertising the park using rides as imagery - it's a graphic element, nothing more.

That's also a good point. The advertisements with the park's name on it doesn't have to have any of the roller coasters at that park. I just figured it would make sense that they would have their own rides and not other ones.

In most cases, you can purchase a season pass which includes access to the other parks that have the rides that are being advertised.

Well, yes, this is true, but I was solely concerned with the fact that the rides on the advertisements were not at the parks being advertised.

I've even heard some radio ads by Cedar Point for Cedar Point where they don't state the facts right. (Claiming Millennium Force has a 310 foot drop)

I think we can agree there's a point where this crosses a line... for example, when a park advertises with a picture (or video) of a coaster but in fact has no coasters. When I was a kid I saw commercials for Wild World (now Six Flags America) that featured a big white coaster called Wild One. Begged my dad to go to the park, when we got there the coaster was nowhere to be found. Turned out the coaster was being built for the next season but hadn't even broken ground yet.

0g said:
I've even heard some radio ads by Cedar Point for Cedar Point where they don't state the facts right. (Claiming Millennium Force has a 310 foot drop)

I heard that ad on the radio and I thought the same thing. The height is 310, the drop is 300. That ad was pretty long too.

This one time, I pulled out my ACE card on a couple of GP folks...

Yeah, but it ain't legit unless your ACE card had gravy spilt on it.

I have to admit I drive my wife crazy with this exact topic. I see MANY adds/billboards...and the worst is the commercials that don't show the correct rides!

Sometimes, I think I'm a little odd for this...but I think what would happen if Cedar Point showed Cinderella's Castle and it wasn't there...sure they have the arcade which kind of looks like a castle.

Sure these parks have roller coasters, but I hate it when they show rides that (to me aren't close)....Examples: When Kings Island is shown to have some type of bottomless coaster from CP or Knott's...I don't think that really shows what Kings' Island has.

Then there are the adds that show the old Dominator/what ever you call it now... at Cedar Point. Cedar Point doesn't have a floorless (I should stress a true floorless coaster that is not Raptor, Wicked Twister or Maxair for those people who would say that those are floorless rides....well yes...but...)

My wife made fun of me for awhile, until now Cedar Fair really mixes their rides up (though I have to say they are doing better with the adds this year...but really how hard is it mix up a dinos.) She too has heard a couple of non-enthusiasts noticing it with Cedar Points adds. When it starts to get to the point that non-enthusiasts notice it, the add people need to take a little more care. I'm loosing sleep over that billboard down the street ;)

This has been going on for years. The chains just hire a marketing media firm to do their ads and they go out to all regions. As someone mentioned it's a cost cutting feature instead of having to do a specific ad for each park or region. I knew a marketing director for one of the waterparks in the Six Flags chain back in the early 2000s and he mentioned it would drive him crazy. He said they would occasionally get questions from guests looking for a ride they saw on the tv ad that's not really there.

I remember even at SFOG back when they had the Viper, they had Viper merch that looked like it had the SFMM ride on it. Suppose it was a cost cutting measure to order in bulk and split the inventory between the parks.

My ex bought an El Toro t-shirt at GAdv, with the ride statistics on it. After noticing the numbers and year built were wrong, we did some research. It turned out the GAdv was selling a Toro tee with the stats for Steel Force. So, not only the wrong coaster, but the wrong park and the wrong CHAIN!!

Are you sure it wasn't purchaced from a guy on the side of the road?

Yeah, those back-alley coaster shirt pushers can be pretty shady.

No. He gets his stats right and his pictures associated with the correct parks.

He also makes a mean Lemon Chill.