Task 1 – promotional mix of Alton Towers

What are their products and their product range?
Alton Towers is a Theme park which has many different roller-coaster and thrilling rides. They have children’s rides which are slow and they also have rides for the major thrill seekers which are fast. Their roller-coasters range from straight to curved, vertical to horizontal and even 90degree drops. The main product I will be concentrating on is The Alton Towers newest ride TH13TEEN. Thirteen is the world’s first free fall drop roller-coaster which is a big step forward in the world of roller-coaster engineering.

Who are their target customers?
Alton Towers has a ride for everyone from babies to adults, however the new TH13TEEN ride is specifically targeted to people aged 14-24years old. It is targeted to the daring thrill seekers that the resort has been missing out in recent years.

Prices?
Alton towers doesn’t charge individually for the rides they have an admission free which ranges from £18 to £50 depending on age and also season times.

Promotional Mix – how does it appeal to the target audience?

Personal selling
Alton Towers used a small amount of personal selling. They hired a small dedicated team to ring around the schools and education institutes and spoke to them about the park and the excitement over the new secret ride. The dedicated team was used to appeal to the younger age of the target market which helped with sales because Alton Towers also offered educational talks and resources to be able to teach the children attending the park some important lessons from the engineering of the park to the business promotional mix.

Public Relations
There was a lot of public relations used with the promotional campaign of TH13TEEN. Alton Towers hired a big team of people to keep the ride under-wraps. As the ride was top secret but still needed the attention the business released fake names for the ride making people speculate. They used the codename ‘Secret weapon 6. The shown article was from when the real name was released. The article shows the fake names and sneak previews worked and many people were talking about the ride. This Public relation stunt was relevant because it got the older range of the target market that read the newspaper talking and gave them the excitement of what was to come. “http://www.themeparktourist.com/news/20091211/753/alton-towers-reveals-new-coaster-name-thirteen-claims-scariest-uk”

Another Public relations stunt that the businesses used was to create the idea of secretive and suspicion. The business spread rumors that Simon Cowells security guard was hired to guard the mysterious ride. http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/Big-Tony-lands-rollercoaster-role/story-21495733-detail/story.html The shown advert shows how ‘Tony The security man’ has his hands full with keeping the secret with his line being ‘My biggest and hardest job ever’.
This stunt was good at relating to the target audience because Simon Cowell is a big name and also his security is well known as one of the best so people knew that whatever was to come was going to be thrilling and immense.
Advertising

TV - Blipverts – Full Adverts
Blipverts are mini adverts that are released before the full advert. Alton Towers used Blipverts to build the expectations and mystery for the full advert. The blipverts were used in short breaks of many popular TV shows and on many channels. The full advert for the ride was aired to a mass audience during major TV shows after 9pm like EastEnders and X-Factor and Britain’s Got Talent. The full advert was 30 seconds long and had a great response from viewers. The advert targeted the wanted audience because the majority of people that watch the shows the advert was showed on is the target market meaning they were getting small sneak previews before the full advert and then got to see the final result after all the speculation. Alton Towers also made a less scarier advert to be played before 9pm which was