Retheming nickelodeon areas at Cedar Fair parks

Go green.

To the larger point, thankfully Cedar Fair is not counting left over park maps at the end of the year to determine attendance figures!

We have gotten advertisement from Kings Island, Michigan Adventure, and Cedar Point here in my neck of the woods in Michigan. I havent had a season pass from Michigan adventure since either 1999 or 2000. Every year since then I have gotten a mailing to remind me to renew my season pass from Michigan Adventure, this year I also for the first time recieved a seperate one from Cedar Point.

RCMAC said:
We get commercials for both CP and KI. I suppose Dayton does too, and maybe Indy and Pittsburgh? Cleveland no, and Cincinnati, no. Right?

To answer a bit of your question, ordinarily, in Cincinnati we only get Kings Island ads, (and they are they kind that run so often that you start to hate them). This year, however, I heard a radio ad for Cedar Point. It seemed a little weird, being in the same city as Kings Island.
I guess it is possible that I was picking up a Dayton station...but in any case they are advertising to Cincinnati-area customers whether they know it or not.

Now, I have a curious question for you, since you live in Columbus. In the past, did you get Geuaga Lake commercials as well? That would be really...interesting.

Here in Columbus, we got Geauga Lake, Cedar Point and Kings Island spots.

As for how obvious it is that they don't have an Ohio strategy...
They run IDENTICAL commercials here for Kings Island and Cedar Point. Well, almost identical. Both spots are the same, both were filmed at Knott's, and they feature the same music and the same actors.

They really should be marketing Kings Island and Cedar Point TOGETHER. But they aren't. Instead they run both spots in the same break during the 11:00 news.

And is Columbus really so unique? Let me look at my map...if I measure the approximate distance between Cedar Point and Kings Island, I see that Columbus is right in the middle. But how about...

CEDAR POINT/KINGS ISLAND: Columbus
KINGS DOMINION/CAROWINDS: Raleigh
KINGS DOMINION/DORNEY PARK: Washington, Baltimore
CEDAR POINT/MICHIGANS ADVENTURE: Ft. Wayne, Lansing
GREAT AMERICA/GILROY GARDENS: San Jose :)
GREAT AMERICA/KNOTT'S: Bakersfield :)

Actually I think they are co-promoting Gilroy Gardens and Great America; there are billboards at Great America promoting Gilroy Gardens. But that's all I have seen so far.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

RideMan said:
As for how obvious it is that they don't have an Ohio strategy...
They run IDENTICAL commercials here for Kings Island and Cedar Point. Well, almost identical. Both spots are the same, both were filmed at Knott's, and they feature the same music and the same actors.

Exactly. But here's the bigger problem as I see it:

Here in Dayton, I see that CP spot roughly 4 times for every 1 time I see the KI spot. I'm 42 miles from KI and 192 away from CP.

I suppose they see that 192 miles as still technically within the market, but it feels odd to be selling me on a trip to CP so aggressively when they should be making sure I know what's in my backyard.

Lord Gonchar said:
It feels odd to be selling me on a trip to CP so aggressively when they should be making sure I know what's in my backyard.

This is nothing new to Cedar Fair. One of the main reasons why Geauga Lake failed is because there was very little effort to market the park to the locals.

I realize that marketing departments like to standardize the ads to cut costs. But is it really cost prohibitive to create unique ads for each park? The parks and their guests are really unique from each other. How can one ad possibly be effective for all?

In my hometown of Cincinnati, it seems like almost everyone who lives here grew up here. The majority of 20-50 year olds around here (Cedar Fair's target group, right?) have memories of going to KI as kids. Why not make an ad that speaks to that history, nostalgia, those happy memories. Show some old footage of the park through the years, even some donated vintage home video, and punctuate it with the new thrills of today (make new memories).

Each Cedar Fair park is old enough to have a unique history, identity, and customer base. With today's cheap digital technology and the internet, I think a unique marketing plan for each would be a big success.

Rideman, what do you think about this brainstorm for Columbus: an ad with a family stewing over whether to visit KI or Cedar Point:
Kid #1 "Cedar Point has the beach, 18 coasters, etc."
Kid #2 "But KI has the new Diamondback"
Mom and Dad "Hey kids, let's get platinum passes and go to both!"
Kids: "Whoo-hooo!"

I know, cheesy, but doesn't this achieve Cedar Fair's goal? Educate the Columbus market about both parks and encourage them to visit both.

I agree that most people in Columbus have no idea that CP & KI are both CF parks. For that matter, I didn't before this season.

Because of the fact that I did find out that they are both the same parent company, I spent the $600 for platinum passes. This also led to getting SF passes and hitting up a ton of parks this summer.

So you get the same blank stares I get when I mention my CF pass works at both places.

Has anyone mentioned this?

http://www.kingsdominion.com/shop/shopping_season_pass.cfm

Uh oh!

buckeye brad said:
... an ad with a family stewing over whether to visit KI or Cedar Point:
Kid #1 "Cedar Point has the beach, 18 coasters, etc."
Kid #2 "But KI has the new Diamondback"
Mom and Dad "Hey kids, let's get platinum passes and go to both!"
Kids: "Whoo-hooo!"

It's exactly this kind of creativity that the chain lacks.

Isn't there just one employee who works at Cedar Point who is given the job of creating the commercials and taking the park photos? I know that the marketing department is very small. It looks to me that this one small department has been given the task of marketing for the entire chain. Aren't we just saying that Cedar Fair should add some fresh people with fresh ideas to the marketing department?

Heck! Run a contest with all of the employees to come up with ideas for an awesome commercial for each park. Employees feel that the park actually enjoys having them there, and the park gets plenty of ideas to consider.

...or ideas for attraction names.

...or whatever.

LostKause said:

buckeye brad said:
... an ad with a family stewing over whether to visit KI or Cedar Point:
Kid #1 "Cedar Point has the beach, 18 coasters, etc."
Kid #2 "But KI has the new Diamondback"
Mom and Dad "Hey kids, let's get platinum passes and go to both!"
Kids: "Whoo-hooo!"

It's exactly this kind of creativity that the chain lacks.

Isn't there just one employee who works at Cedar Point who is given the job of creating the commercials and taking the park photos? I know that the marketing department is very small. It looks to me that this one small department has been given the task of marketing for the entire chain. Aren't we just saying that Cedar Fair should add some fresh people with fresh ideas to the marketing department?

Heck! Run a contest with all of the employees to come up with ideas for an awesome commercial for each park. Employees feel that the park actually enjoys having them there, and the park gets plenty of ideas to consider.

...or ideas for attraction names.

...or whatever.

It is hard to do much more than the "basics" when the marketing departments find their budgets slashed. Remember, creativity is not a Cedar Fair trait, they are a conservative and rigidly structured "operational" company.

Thought I would give some love to the new Planet Snoopy coming to Carowinds in 2010. Kind of got overshadowed by the coaster announcement today.

I think it would have been a fun, creative and inexpensive idea if this summer they had painted doggie "paw prints" running around on the Nickelodeon midways to signal the forthcoming arrival of Planet Snoopy to all the former Paramount Parks. Still blows my mind the true lack of "FUN" some, though not all, amusement park operators have or show.

(Props to Paula and Will at HW for not being that way!)

Looks like it's official at Kings Island too.

http://visitkingsisland.com/events/event_detail.cfm?event_id=644&ec_id=11

Interesting that KI said Scooby is leaving too. The other parks only said Nick and HB (I know Scooby is essentially HB too.)

So....the million dollar question is: will there be a Peanuts themed dark ride, will Scooby just become a generic Sally Ghostblasters, or will they all sit there shuttered like at CP and KBF?

I assume Scooby would be out at all of the former Paramount Parks for the same reason Nick is out chain wide?

This is sad.

My daughter is going to be so bummed out.She gets so excited to see sponge bob and dora.

This makes no sense. Rip out a golden ticket, well themed kids area to put in some cut outs of a dog???

Way to go cedarfair....yet another great decision. As a parent of a three year old, this pisses me off.

Are they really going to remove the Scooby dark rides? Wow, that is wrong on all levels. I hope this doesn't mean they all go SBNO next year.

Wow. I expected the Nick stuff to go, but didn't expect Scooby to be leaving too. It'll be interesting to see how they re-theme the dark ride.

How many rethemes of KI's kids area does this make? Opened as HB land, updated early 90's(?), rethemed to Nick late-90's/early-00's, Snoopy in 2010

Same goes for the dark ride - opened as HB, then Smurfs, Phantom Theater, Scooby, now possibly Snoopy

In all fairness, this is the one area of a park that needs to be somewhat fresh to tie in with the popular kids' entertainment du jour, as has been discussed earlier.

I just don't think this is a smart move for the park. I hope whatever takes Scooby's place next year isn't horribly disappointing -- and that's assuming the ride will actually be open at all.

I thought the Scooby theme came with the ride through Sally, or its at least a theming license that Sally offers on its rides?

But yes, it can't be said enough, seems like a very stupid move by Cedar Fair. One that is, unfortunately, not that surprising really.