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Branded Attractions
www.parkworld-online.com
can drive attendance it would seem foolish to pay confidence for parks to develop their own brands.
a licensing fee for the brand.” How many of today’s operators, for example,
As both brand owner and attraction operator, would have the courage or resources to create
clearly Studio 100, which launches a new concepts as strong as Disney’s Haunted Mansion
Plopsa outlet soon in the Netherlands, is in a or Pirates of the Caribbean, which started off as
fortunate position. But there are other ways for theme park attractions, and then spawned the
parks, particularly smaller venues, to film, rather than the other way round?
experiment with licensed characters before Let’s hope some do. Although most IP-owners
committing to a new attraction or complete have deals in place with park operators that
Movie Park
overhaul of an area. restrict the number of licences within a certain
When it lost its Warner Bros franchise
“A licensed character appearance can help the geographical area, there is still a danger that by
a few years ago, the owners of Movie park gauge the likely appeal and success of that integrating brands that are ubiquitous in the
Park near Bottrop in Germany
particular brand before committing to a licensing outside world, theme parks are themselves
decided that, rather than get into bed
with a single licence holder, they
partnership,” says Simon Foulkes of Rainbow becoming commodities.
would partner with the owners of
Productions in the UK, which supplies traditional In the same article that he urged attractions
multiple intellectual properties (IP). park mascots and licensed costumed character operators to consider their brand equity, Bob
“Warner still has strong brands,
appearances. “Booking several different licensed Rogers also warned: “We are commoditising our
but whereas as you or I may be
familiar with Bugs Bunny and Tweety
characters at the same venue will provide a parks. Identical solutions are appearing
Pie, my kids are not,” notes Movie
simple litmus test to compare their relative everywhere for everything. Our attractions are all
Park general manager Wouter popularity and appeal.” starting to look alike.”
Dekkers. “It’s all now about Dora, it’s
Rainbow also offers a live show division, as do Rogers wasn’t just talking about the brands
about DreamWorks, it’s about
Shrek.”
brand owners such as HIT and Entertainment inside parks, but nevertheless integrating
One of the first licences to be
Rights, providing venues with another way to “dip someone else’s intellectual property should not
brought in after Warner was Ice Age their toe in the water” or indeed bolster the be considered the magic solution for all
in 2005. The animated movie from
appeal of brands already in the park. But does attractions.
20th Century Fox gives its name to
Ice Age Adventure, a re-themed
inviting outside characters in render a park’s own “Being based on a brand is not a guarantee of
version of the park’s old Looney
mascots redundant? success,” concludes James. “Likewise, not
Tunes Adventure dark ride. The park
“We see the two having different roles and incorporating a brand does not doom a
expects a boost this summer when Ice
purposes in attracting people to an attraction,” development to failure. Ultimately success or
Age 3 is released.
Perhaps the biggest statement
says Ruffley. “In some cases, park mascots have failure is driven by the quality of the product and
came in 2007, when the park added
become brands in their own right and have high the audience’s acceptance of that product.”
Nick Land, the first Nickelodeon-
recognition regionally.”
branded area in Europe. Attendance
that season leaped to over one
“Traditional mascots help parks to build their In the May issue of Park World we will examine
million after teetering below 900,000
own brand,” agrees Foulkes. “Examples include what brand owners expect from attractions
the previous year, and then jumped Liseberg with its green rabbits or a new character
operators, as well as the strategies employed by
again to 1.17 million in 2008
we currently have in development for Thorpe Park those licence holders keen to develop their own
following a Nick Land expansion and
the addition of a Shrek 4D movie
called Max Thrill.” entertainment outlets. Read the complete text later
(pictured above).
Of course it takes a lot of time, money and this month at
www.parkworld-online.com
Dekkers reveals that the park had
earlier tried to create its own
characters for a number of its live
Thomas Land at Drayton Manor
shows, but it simply hadn’t worked.
“It was awful,” he says. “Parks like
Efteling or Walibi have a long history.
People know the brand and can
connect with it. We soon realised that
unless you’ve got that history, you
need to stick to well-known licences.
Our long term plan is that everything
in the park should have an IP of
some sort.”
One of the park’s biggest licences
is Shrek 4D, and Movie Park is the
only non-Universal or DreamWorks
outlet in the world to have it. Dekkers
adds that although he is now dealing
with some pretty big studios, the
development process for new
attractions is remarkably quick: “With
Shrek for example it took us only 15
days from signing before the start of
the season to get all the software.
The guys from DreamWorks and
Universal were fantastic and we have
some good friendships now with
many of the licence holders,
which makes it relatively easy
when it comes to passing
artwork etc.”
www.moviepark.de
34 APRIL 2009
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