Another Crappy Publicity Stunt From Thorpe

[Smithy]

Most parks will look on at the results of the publicity and probably think they've missed a trick tbh, I don't think any of them are foolish enough to believe it or even think B&M are involved.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

I do wonder though if B&M, given how straight laced they are, would feel about it though. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if we see a break down in their relationship.

 

[Tomatron]

Really?

That's like saying that because Pasaje del Terror is a scary haunted house (for the sake of argument), the people who built the building must be pretty upset because it's scary.

Good publicity is what any park and manufacturer wants for their product, and this is good publicity because people are talking about it. And if Thorpe's end of year operating profit increases thanks to their new addition, of B&M are gonna be happy because their installation has been part of the reason why.

People are looking way too deep into this.

 

[Ben]

^Except that's an awful example.

It's like the Scare Attraction advertising that people have died in it because the builders made the knives real or something.

I'm sure they'd LOVE that.

 

[Tomatron]

Haha I was looking for a better example!

But you're missing the point. They are dummies. No-one's died on Swarm and unless by some misfortune someone rides with an undiagnosed heart condition for example, or someone does something really stupid, no-one will.

The point still remains. It's good publicity.

 

[Ben]

But, regardless of what has been "injured" they're saying their product is capable of inflicting injury. Which is not good publicity.

Nor do I think B&M will like it.

Nor is it TRUE.

Imagine if a charity said "Oh, all these people in Blackpool have died, please donate to our charity to help them", and they hadn't, you wouldn't support that because they're lying. They're getting publicity and their takings will go up, but it's lying to the public via the National Press, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone cared enough to go to Trading Standards, they'd get in trouble for it.

 

[Ben]

You should take your morals and work for the News of the World.

 

[furie]

It's not about morals, it's about lying

 

[Tomatron]

Hmm, makes me wonder why Blackpool Pleasure Beach haven't been done for saying the Big One is the tallest, fastest, steepest rollercoaster in Europe! :wink:

Thorpe Park is a business, not a charity. Nowhere have they said that people will get hurt. Their publicity stunt whether people like it or not, has worked pretty damn well. Especially with our little branch.

Not exactly hacking into a dead girl's voicemail, is it?

 

[Martyn B]

My point about B&M possibly not being happy about this was brought up because this is said in the press:

Thorpe Park ordered experts to redesign its £20m new rollercoaster

They haven't mentioned anything about theming. They've suggested that the ride has been poorly designed and dangerous.

And this 'news' appears to have gone global now. I just cant see B&M being overly happy with it all...

 

[Smithy]

There is no such thing as bad publicity. Hell, Michael O'Leary has made an absolute fortune out of it.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

I think the difference with 13 is that, wrongly or rightly, people consider physical harm more serious.

Otherwise I see no difference and I'm with you, UC.

But I do wonder how B&M feels about all this, with their insane safety record and obvious uptightness. I dunno, maybe I get the wrong impression of them.

 

[Ben]

You should take your morals and work for the News of the World.

I have yet to see an answer to my question.

Where were you guys when Alton was using scare tactics to charge people "insurance" for a doctor-backed psychological risk?

Or how come no one submitted Blackpool to the authorities for all the times they've lied about PMBO, or started telling people Infusion was a brand new coaster?

Or what about Thorpe claiming they "increased the acceleration" on Stealth, when all they did was change where they measured it from?

I don't care if you're discussing morals, or complaining about how "lying to the public is wrong," but the bottom line here is you guys have watched this stuff happen time and again, and you arbitrarily decide that now it's wrong, that now you're going to take a stand and tell everyone how terrible Thorpe is for doing this, for lying to people?

Give it a rest.

Are you like, oblivious to things?

I was being critical of the Stealth thing THIS week, actually.

The PMBO thing is CONSTANTLY nitpicked about.

Never heard about that thing with Th13teen. Fairly sure I *HATED* the marketing of that as a whole, so.

So, uh, yeah. GOOD ONE. Your entire "point" rests on something you've pretty much imagined or ignored, depending on how you look at it. Excellent work.

You aren't going to change what they're doing. You aren't going to "get them in trouble." You aren't going to stop them from pushing reality with their ad campaigns.

And? Doesn't mean I can't have an opinion on it.

Don't give me this crap over "bad publicity is never good," either, because the majority of the people seeing this ad campaign don't even know it's "bad" publicity. As far as they're concerned, Thorpe identified a problem and it's being fixed - oh and by the way, check out that big awesome new coaster they have.

Didn't say never, stop putting words in my mouth, UC.

I imagine Thorpe doesn't care if a few people think it's "wrong," because the majority of people aren't going to know/care anyway. So what exactly are you guys complaining about? It looks like you all just want to show off how much more "moral" and "worldly" and "better" you all are to each other, because there's no one else listening to what you guys have to say.

I find it quite hilarious you would accuse me of ever being overly moral. That's amazing. So, if we're showing off how "moral" and "wordly" we are, aren't you just showing off how "cool" and "laid-back" you are? No-one's listening? Well, you've replied a fair amount. Guess that means you're listening.

So if you want to go off on a personal note of how "wrong" this all is, fine, go ahead and do it - just know that when you finally give up your great crusade against it, you're going to have to wait in one hell of a line to ride Swarm behind all of the people being attracted to the ride right now.

You know, you make this point about us going on and on about it. You do realise it keeps being mentioned because YOU keep dragging it back up, right? You're aware of that, right?

This is ALL a matter of opinion, UC. You constantly moaning and whinging that people don't agree with you is going to get us nowhere. Especially when your reasons for people being "hypocrites" are full of crap.

 

[tks]

This made The Metro. Therefore it is good publicity.

 

[Smithy]

Not trying to get involved in the crux of the argument whatsoever, but BPB were heavily slated on here (and to the extent that iirc Furie and possibly someone else questioned them directly about why they 'lied') about the height and records PMBO held, past just complaining and a lot of people mocked/questioned why they were able to get away with it, so to speak.

 

[Darren B]

You see, I think their is an issue with this piece of marketing. On previous occasions, such as the 'say no to B/O' and the 'mouthwash station' campaigns no harm had occurred, it was simple marketing that got a few people talking about the park. Fair enough, so be it.

What your talking about now is potential slander of another company, previous campaigns would have only brought harm on themselves, So surely TP must be under the impression that the publics view is that they actually build their own roller coasters, right? Because if not, they have no right whatsoever to publicise another company's 'fault', especially for marketing purposes.

And really how difficult is it for anyone to google 'who built The Swarm at Thorpe Park?'

I think Thorpe have crossed the boundaries with this one....

 

[Ben]

TL;DR.

Just to sum up the main points in nice bullet points.

1. People complain like **** about other dodgy marketing ideas. Hence, the creation of this topic we're posting in RIGHT now, back in 2009. So, you can also stop the stuff about this going on for "seven pages" because you CLEARLY haven't looked back at the topic at all. Unless we're somehow magic and predicted this would happen back in 2009.

2. Fairly sure I never called the general public "idiots". So, yeah. Again, putting words in my mouth.

3. Having an opinion that something is wrong, is not a deliberate attempt to be moral. I oppose the Holocaust, doesn't mean I only do so so I can be seen as moral. Other people tire of you UC, not because they think you're right, but because they look at your posts and go "yeah, I've got like, stuff to do in my life, so, yeah..." Plus, it pretty much stopped in that other topic, BECAUSE IT CAME OVER TO THIS ONE.

4. UC, you claim I have nothing to support the fact *I* personally *think* that lying to the public via the national press is wrong. This clearly *subjective opinion* holds the same weight as your *subjective opinion* that lying is fine. Those that matter get it, those that don't, well, they'll spend their money, so... (and I thought it was my side of the argument that was insulting the GP...)

5. I'm not trying to "do" anything beyond express an opinion. You've taken umbrage to people having differnet opinions to you, and YOU keep dragging it out. Noone else, YOU. YOU are making it an issue here, not me. So, the question is what are YOU trying to get out of this?

6. When you've been caught lying by the Daily Mail, you know you've **** up.

 

[Mark]

Ok ladies we get it. You both have differing opinions but at the moment its getting like a tennis match with the same ball being twatted back and forth with only minorly differing shots.

 

[TP Rich]

Wow... I honestly can't be bothered to take publicity stunts/statements so seriously. I'm just interested in the theme parks themselves.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Wow... I honestly can't be bothered to take publicity stunts/statements so seriously. I'm just interested in the theme parks themselves.

There comes a time when you've been here long enough that you have to find interest in a broader range of things. Also, the psychology of it all is genuinely interesting. And so is it from the perspective of wanting to get into the industry.