Another Crappy Publicity Stunt From Thorpe

[SaiyanHajime]

Wouldn't the fact that they said that it was a death-machine, but now isn't because they fixed some stuff, imply that they just pushed the limits too much and had to tone it back a bit, so now its still crazy yet safe?

Or am I just reading into it deeper than the average person?

You're bang on. If you read the article, they literally spell this out.

I think a lot of people think coasters just aren't scary enough - cuz they rarely are - so a marketing campaign that implies the ride is as scary as possible without being dangerous is pretty solid.

The problem is people rarely pick up all the details of an article. So it won't effect everyone this way. It will have effects similar to what Furie is saying for many others.

I told my sister about this, and she know says she wouldn't ride it.

Anecdotal evidence has more holes in it that an Italian cruise ship.

If she witnessed others ride it and they came off safe and still held this view, then she's either really tall or ... not very clever?

Also what is her general impression fo rides...?

And is she begging you not to ride it? If she's not, then she she's not saying what she actually believes/feels or she hates you. I bet once she was on park, if she usually rides big coasters, she'd ride it. And I bet it wouldn't put her off going to Thorpe if she would have gone anyway. People often say what they don't mean.

 

[scw55]

In my opinion they should keep implied likely death on attraction to theme and scenery/atmosphere of the ride, exaggerated promotional media or other realms of not likely for the average person to take it seriously.

Dry-PR stunts of indicating testing dummies have lost limbs in pseudo seriousness is wrong. It just makes the PR company come across as annoying people. It will put people off wanting to ride it and entice idiots to want to ride it. It may also infuriate people.

Couldn't they just carried on spinning the whole apocalypse theme? They didn't need to go low like this.

 

[Smithy]

Whether many people read it or not, suggesting that Thorpe Park's rides are dangerous will not attract customers.

Because of course you know this to be a fact?

And of course, you know the opposite to be a fact?

:roll:

Try again, you're smarter than that.

Yes, it is common sense. If I knew nothing about publicity stunts and read this in The Sun, one of Britain's most major newpapers, I'd think twice about riding THE SWARM.

Hiding behing 'common sense' doesn't help your argument. First problem is actually believing people are going to read this in The Sun and believe it. Second problem is then thinking that people are specifically not going to go to the park as a result of the story. You're vastly underestimating the intelligence of the general public, even if they do believe the stories, I highly doubt it'll affect them in the slightest, if anything it's going to increase the likelihood of them talking about Thorpe Park/The Swarm, thus spreading the word, thus the marketing has done it's job.

 

[Ben]

Try again, you're smarter than that.

Um, you try and prove what you're saying other than just going "no, you're wrong, it's this". You can't expect him to prove his subjective opinion if you aren't going to prove yours. Insulting people isn't going to make your argument any stronger.

I told my sister about this, and she know says she wouldn't ride it.

Anecdotal evidence has more holes in it that an Italian cruise ship.

If she witnessed others ride it and they came off safe and still held this view, then she's either really tall or ... not very clever?

Also what is her general impression fo rides...?

And is she begging you not to ride it? If she's not, then she she's not saying what she actually believes/feels or she hates you. I bet once she was on park, if she usually rides big coasters, she'd ride it. And I bet it wouldn't put her off going to Thorpe if she would have gone anyway. People often say what they don't mean.

You've missed my point. My point was it's all very well going "my dad says this" "my mum says this" "my aunt's dead dog's ex-walker's sister-in-law's cousin three-times removed says this", but, that really means ****.

Unless one of us is going to go out, and conduct a huge survey, we will never know what impact this will have on the general public.

Even Thorpe would struggle to find out how effective this was compared to the rest of the marketing. If the marketing leads to X amount more people than last year, is that down to this, or campaign Y or campaign Z.

So, we don't KNOW anything. We can all have opinions, but, it seems like the second someone disagrees with this, they get leapt on. And it's not just one person that thinks it's stupid, it's a fairly decent split of opinion. So... My point is, why the HELL is this still being dragged out. Get over it. People should all go and masturbate or something else more productive than this.

 

[Smithy]

Try again, you're smarter than that.

Um, you try and prove what you're saying other than just going "no, you're wrong, it's this".

:lol:

Feel free to show me where I said/did such a thing.

Because, seeing as the penny didn't drop, nowhere did I state my opinion, nor try to claim it as a fact as he did. So to attempt to pick me up as if I did so, as you did, simply doesn't work.

You can't expect him to prove his subjective opinion if you aren't going to prove yours. Insulting people isn't going to make your argument any stronger.

I didn't expect him to prove his subjective opinion, I questioned his comment because it was presented as if it was a fact. It wasn't.

 

[Ben]

When it comes time for the ride to open, and it has full queues, well... yeah.

It's a new ride, duh it'll have huge queues.

That'd be true regardless of this happening or not.

The point was, will this actually ADD to what would have been there without this. IE., is it a successful marketing campaign? This, THIS, is where some people don't think it'll be a success. Nobody has suggested that Thorpe is going to be a barren wasteland this year because of this. You're just over-reacting to a statement. Again. Like you always do

Rest of the post can have a TL;DR since you always miss out the fundamentals of people's points for the sake of blabbering on.

 

[Ben]

Your "evidence" is based on the same sort of presumptions that we are ALL making here though, UC.

This is back to the point of "oh, we're talking about it on here, AND my mum mentioned it to me SO IT'S WORKING".

We don't KNOW it's working at all... You're just ASSUMING it is.

Jesus. It's really not that hard to get.

 

[Ben]

So since it obviously isn't failing, Thorpe is successful with it. People are talking, and there's no noticeable negative backlash. Sounds like a successful buzz generating campaign to me!

I've highlighted the assumption that you KEEP making.

Show me evidence that a significant amount of people are talking about this.

Until then, my point stands that NEITHER of us can prove our sides, so why you keep dragging this out is beyond me.

 

[gavin]

I'll say it again, outside of these forums, I've heard nobody talking about this. Not a single person.

It doesn't mean that people aren't, but, well, people aren't. Basically.

 

[bob_3_]

I've heard nobody talking about this. Not a single person.

You messin'?!?!

I've had almost every non-enthusiast come up to me about it. "OMG Richard you heard what happened on that new ride they're building" bout 3 times a day since it was published!

 

[gavin]

My only answer to that, as rude as it sounds, is that I'm clearly around more intelligent people than you are on a day-to-day basis. And I work with under-achieving eleven year olds.

Seriously, haven't heard a thing.

 

[Ben]

Outside of that one news article, was there ANYTHING else?

I checked the Facebook pages just after this all kicked off on here, and there was very little on there either.

More rage about Merlin cancelling the Annual Pass offer...

 

[SaiyanHajime]

The reason Bob has heard stuff and Gavin hasn't is probably that Bob's peers know he likes coasters.

 

[Ben]

I've highlighted the assumption that you KEEP making.

Show me evidence that a significant amount of people are talking about this.

Well, for starters, when I type "Swarm Thorpe Park" in to Google, it's the first thing that comes up.

The Daily Mail article has 167 comments and 1549 Facebook "likes."

The Huffington Post article has fewer comments, but a linked Twitter feed where someone mentioned it as recently as 15 minutes ago (and obviously before that).

The Mirror had 232 FB recommendations.

Sky News had 564 recommendations and 200+ Tweets.

OK. So, it got read about as much as every other article. Fantastic.

None of those numbers suggest it has been particularly widespread, UC. Especially since it IS the sort of thing people would be likely to Facebook recommend, I actually feel that's quite a small amount.

Frankly, those could literally JUST be enthusiasts, or at least people with more of an interest than the regular GP.

Those sort of numbers for something aimed at the sort of people who USE FB is crap.

And UC, we stopped talking about the ride a long, long time ago, now we're just talking about their marketing department...

 

[Ben]

Of course there was a spike around there...

Funny how it drops straight back off again... I thought people were still talking about it?

Also, funny how we can't tell how much of a spike that really is.

Of COURSE it got Googled... You can't tell if those are positive or negative though.

For God sake UC, neither of us can prove anything here. Are you THIS bored?

 

[Ben]

Um, I don't have to make a choice based on the fact that you can't accept people have a different opinion to you.

I don't think the fact that a few people Googled it means it was a success. Sorry. I still think it's wrong to lie to the public in the national media and treat them like they're stupid. Sorry.

End of. If you feel like continuely going at it, please go and shout your argument at a brick wall.

 

[Ben]

You seem not to know what a wall is.

Go find one of these, and talk to that. Please.

 

[Ben]

It was never a legitimate discussion, UC, it was you and others trying to make people feel bad for not holding the same view point as you.

 

[Tomatron]

I don't think anyone was trying to make people feel bad apart from yourself, Ben. We've been explaining how PR campaigns work, and work well, regardless of whether a person likes them or not.

Stop being such a keyboard warrior and give it a rest.

 

[Ben]

Again, still no evidence this has worked well.

No evidence at all this has worked any better than an article that just said it's testing (you know, a non-lying one) would have done.

And I'm not the one that started the whole 'stop trying to be moral, high horse' ****, which is what I refer to when saying people were attacking people with the view that it isn't God's gift to advertising. But, you've taken this so far away from what the original point was, I doubt you even remember it.