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Why do brands sponsor rides?

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Ellaoftheball

TS Member
I work in marketing and don't understand what brands get out of sponsoring rides/attractions! Don't understand how Pepsi sponsoring the Big One adds any marketing value to Pepsi or how Tango Ice Blast sponsoring Ice Blast adds any marketing value to Tango!
 
The fact you’ve just reeled off the sponsors for both rides means you’ve just nicely explained the reason yourself right there ;) - brand awareness.

Arguably Pepsi’s sponsorship of the Big One was probably one of the most impressive in the 90s. I don’t think there’s anyone who didn’t know it as the Pepsi Max Big One. It’s a giant red and blue landmark which just so happens to share Pepsi’s own traditional logo colours. Linking a brand with the adrenaline rush and thrill of a theme park ride was also huge business, especially in the 90s before wider use of the Internet. Pepsi Max has always been linked to extreme sports/activities with the tag line “maximum taste no sugar” to differentiate from Diet Coke, which was posted as a ‘female only’ drink in the past. Throwing theme park rides into the mix was a natural extension to that.

Likewise with Ice Blast debuting as PlayStation: The Ride, it’s an exciting and thrilling attraction and linking a brand to that in the public’s mind was ideal to marketers. Things have moved on a fair bit in recent years, sponsorships maybe aren’t so blatant. But that’s thanks to the Internet presenting so many other forms of advertising for businesses these days.
 
I think it's two folds. It's probably cheaper to sponsor a ride than to run a TV/billboard ad, as well as that the themepark can only exclusively sell the branded product on park. When the ride is filmed for TV, then you get free TV advertisement ;)
 
RoyJess said:
I think it's two folds. It's probably cheaper to sponsor a ride than to run a TV/billboard ad, as well as that the themepark can only exclusively sell the branded product on park. When the ride is filmed for TV, then you get free TV advertisement ;)
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Yup I think it's easy to forget just how huge these two rides were. Even Playstation: The Ride, a humble space shot was huge news in the UK. It was also featured on the 1997 BBC documentary, so free advertising for Sony off the back of that too.
 
Craig said:
The fact you’ve just reeled off the sponsors for both rides means you’ve just nicely explained the reason yourself right there ;) - brand awareness.

Arguably Pepsi’s sponsorship of the Big One was probably one of the most impressive in the 90s. I don’t think there’s anyone who didn’t know it as the Pepsi Max Big One. It’s a giant red and blue landmark which just so happens to share Pepsi’s own traditional logo colours. Linking a brand with the adrenaline rush and thrill of a theme park ride was also huge business, especially in the 90s before wider use of the Internet. Pepsi Max has always been linked to extreme sports/activities with the tag line “maximum taste no sugar” to differentiate from Diet Coke, which was posted as a ‘female only’ drink in the past. Throwing theme park rides into the mix was a natural extension to that.

Likewise with Ice Blast debuting as PlayStation: The Ride, it’s an exciting and thrilling attraction and linking a brand to that in the public’s mind was ideal to marketers. Things have moved on a fair bit in recent years, sponsorships maybe aren’t so blatant. But that’s thanks to the Internet presenting so many other forms of advertising for businesses these days.
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Fair enough. I guess brand awareness and market penetration would be the main reason.
I guess I've just never looked into sponsoring a ride in my job (marketing) because it may struggle to align with our brand and we've never been approached about such an opportunity.

Craig said:
Yup I think it's easy to forget just how huge these two rides were. Even Playstation: The Ride, a humble space shot was huge news in the UK. It was also featured on the 1997 BBC documentary, so free advertising for Sony off the back of that too.
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It may not be accurate to call it "free advertising" when the brand would have been paying the park money for the sponsorship deal.
 
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Ellaoftheball said:
It may not be accurate to call it "free advertising" when the brand would have been paying the park money for the sponsorship deal.
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Yes they'd have had to pay for the sponsorship, but you certainly wouldn't be able to pay the BBC directly for advertising Sony on their channels.

Ellaoftheball said:
I guess I've just never looked into sponsoring a ride in my job (marketing) because it may struggle to align with our brand and we've never been approached about such an opportunity.
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Yeah with the internet offering so many alternatives for advertising now, ride sponsorship deals are less important than they once were. I doubt many parks even bother to search for brands to link up with these days (see Merlin's recent additions for example) and prefer to use alternative means of revenue generation such as merchandise and product sponsorship (Seabrooks for Wickerman for example)
 
Ride sponsorships was always a bit of a fad and only had a big impact on a handful of rides (Pepsi Max Big One being the most notable). I suppose another benefit for sponsorships is that they can normally be for 1, 2 or more years - probably more cost effective than running marketing campaigns over multiple years that will cost far more.

I feel it has always cheapened rides (not the bands themselves). Air sponsored by Heroes felt odd and of course the horrific Oblivion sponsored by Fanta was just awful. For theme parks IPs are the way to go currently, and for brands as said with the internet there are many other avenues that will have a bigger impact than branding a theme park ride for a year or two.
 
Effective ride sponsorship has to include the ride name, I think.

The marketing effect of people talking about the 'Pepsi Max ride' for 25 years will not be insignificant.

Nobody remembers the Oblivion Fanta sponsorship save us enthusiasts, and only then because it was an abomination.

Include branding in the name, and people are saying your brand name hundreds of times a day without even realising it... but it doesn't work so well in a true 'theme park' environment.
 
Sponsorship has always been more noticible at Blackpool I think, but the Tussauds parks had some.

The more notable Tussauds examples are probably the Imperial Leather Bubbleworks, Imperial Leather Flume and Imperial Leather Foamburst Master Blaster (in Cariba Creek). The first two had the entire theme of the ride based on the sponsorship.
There was also the Ribena Berry Bish Bash (now Justins Pie-o-matic) and Ribena Rumba Rapids (at Thorpe).
There was also some low key sponsorship, the Oblivion kiosk in front of the drop was Coca-Cola branded with the logo on the roof for years and of course Cadbury Hereos on Air.
Thorpe probably got through more though, Tidal Wave had Original Source and Dr Pepper at various times as well as Tetley Tea cups.

This shows that the main sponsors really of Tussauds parks were Cussons (at one point all the hotel shower gel was Imperial Leather, shampoo was Original Source and hand soap in the parks was Carex). But Coke group have had a lot of influence too.

In terms of the why, money usually. Some got ride themes paid for, others just the brand on signage.

Merlin seem to have gone more down the film/book IP routes instead of working with brands.
 
jon81uk said:
Sponsorship has always been more noticible at Blackpool I think, but the Tussauds parks had some.
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That's true, but the Pleasure Beach company made the product names intrinsic to the name of the ride, so much so that the rides were known colloquially as "The Pepsi Max" and "The Irn Bru", especially locally. They didn't even try and disguise Ice Blast.

Arguably, the best usage was TRAUMAtizer, so much so that you could be forgiven for not knowing it was a sponsorship tie in unless you saw it written down and recognised the logo.

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There's so many ... Pepsi Loop, Coca Cola Roller. The weaker ones were 7UP Shockwave and Lucozade Energy Space Shot.

Edit: Forgot Tango Drench Falls & Fruit Shoot! Drayton had Robinson's Land too.
 
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One of the biggest ones is Silverstar at EP, not in the name but of course anyone who’s done it can’t help but notice all the Mercedes sponsorship around the ride, station and queue line. Which happens to get refreshed every few years.

Its clever how Ice Blast has never actually had a none branded name, and it’s also interesting how we do all refer to it as Ice Blast and not PlayStation which it was known as for years.
 
djtruefitt said:
Its clever how Ice Blast has never actually had a none branded name, and it’s also interesting how we do all refer to it as Ice Blast and not PlayStation which it was known as for years.
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It's been called Ice Blast for 21 years, I think it'd be more interesting if we called it Playstation.

Opal Fruit anyone?
 
One positive with Ice Blast is that the name still worked when they dropped "Tango" from the front of it. I'd forgotten the current name was originally a sponsorship tie-in.

I think the most interesting thing about PMBO (as I will continue to write it regardless of official name) is how strongly associated the sponsorship was with the ride. With a lot of rides people would most likely simply drop the name of the sponsor when referring to it. I doubt anyone ever said "Irn-Bru Revolution" unless being paid to do so, whereas I got the impression a lot of people abbreviated Big One to "the Pepsi Max".

TraumaTizer was also going to be my go-to example of how to do ride naming rights subtly. I remember being surprised to see the giant red Tizer head on the side of it when I first arrived at the park as I hadn't spotted the sponsorship embedded in the ride name prior to that.
 
Won't buy Original Source shower gel anymore after they ruined Tidal Wave. Although that's mainly because the mint one sets your testicles on fire.

There's definitely a place for ride sponsorship in amusement parks, not so much theme parks. Europa manage to make it work though in fairness.
 
RicketyCricket said:
There's definitely a place for ride sponsorship in amusement parks, not so much theme parks. Europa manage to make it work though in fairness.
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Also Disney really went hard on sponsors, the original Disneyland was full of it. Things like the Carnation Café named after the milk, the Sunkist pavilion etc many food places were presented by a brand. Many rides also had sponsers, Its a Small World was presented by Pepsi Cola, the Speedway has gone through several car brands.
 
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