DC Rivals advertising on public transport

[pushbutton]

Saw these all over the interior of a train I was travelling on this morning! 

 

 

[Santa07]

I'll be honest - if I was on that train it wouldn't really catch my attention. Text on that "ride features" sign needs a magnifying glass to read.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

1 hour ago, Santa07 said:

I'll be honest - if I was on that train it wouldn't really catch my attention. Text on that "ride features" sign needs a magnifying glass to read.

You should probably get your vision checked. Given the size of the passenger's head beside the sign - its fairly sizeable text that would be fine to read when standing \ sitting within proximity... notwithstanding the picture being taken by a potato, and horribly backlit.

Obviously they've worked with what the body of the train allows, and gone as wide as they can between the windows.

It's different (at least to me) and after reading the banner headlines across the roof, i'd be intrigued enough to walk along and read the smaller signage to find out more - provided it wasn't during peak hour crush.

Edited October 30, 2017 by AlexB
potato!

[joz]

Few shots from the other week.  The first photo is of a chair back so right in front of people the rest are wider shots.  It's kinda hard to miss

[Slick]

The fact of the matter is, we're well over a month into operation and the park still hasn't shot any non-CGI photography to show off their incredible new roller-coaster. My European counterpart takes incredible photos like this when rides open:

Yeah, so if those images don't demonstrate how out of touch their marketing strategy in a world of social influencers and digital advertising, I don't know what does. They have one super photoshopped hero image that tells audiences nothing other then "here's how good our art department is at putting faces in a fake train." 

But I digress... in regards to this train... "GREATEST THEME PARK ATTRACTION" - like, huh, what? How are you conveying anything more then a dreary PR by-line that no one will actually connect with? It's a fucking massive roller-coaster, just call it for what it is and get people's attention already. "Australia's biggest & best roller-coaster" is a basic start & far more interesting as a simple by-line then something over-workshopped like "greatest theme park attraction in Australia."

Furthering this, beyond the dregs of radio hosts with little to no actual online following, where's the social engagement? The best has been a dreary vibrating clip of V8 drivers on it that had criminally bad audio and rigging. Like honestly, why is Clark Kirby letting such out of touch and outdated advertising in a totally evolved landscape is kind of beyond me - having white outlines of the roller-coaster on print artwork in a train does nothing for the general public to convey how shit hot this ride is and to me it's just there to service who-ever's job it was to create the graphics in the first place and nothing more.

They should take a leaf out of literally any other park globally. They were nine months behind the global industry median average for marketing an attraction of this magnitude. There should've been construction updates, hype videos, public events, competitions, social influence engagement, ERTs - it makes me so resigned and cynical that they botched it so badly that i'd almost draft up a creative brief just to illustrate the point for those who aren't in the industry to understand just how much potential money they've lost. It's no coincidence brands like Kmart have made such a resurgence into Australian culture and consumer mindsets over the last few years, they turfed their marketing departments and ad agencies for teams of folks who get how to engage with their loyalist followings - going so far as to fly admins of Mum-friendly facebook groups to influence hundreds of thousands of other mums. In 2017, that's where you should be starting your efforts as a head of a brand's marketing efforts, not by slapping stickers on freaking trains that have literally no substance or no actual graphics that show how impressive the ride's sheer size is in the flesh.

It's just really simple at the end of the day - TVC's by themselves do not work, and resisting digital does and will hurt your brand, and it's hurting all of Village's brands right now. Their main piece of advertising has maybe five seconds of non-CGI vision, so it's no wonder when I travel to Sydney literally no one has any idea of DC Rivals HyperCoaster. None of this shit connects with real people because none of it is even real to start with. It's a waste of space and money, and to be really blunt, the cost to make, print and run that ad-spot on the train could've paid for a creative like myself to shoot that ride for three days and deliver digital content that would be seen by 40x more people.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

I was driving through Mt Gravatt yesterday and caught a billboard for Rivals, and it struck me that the image they use - the CGI train ontop of the CGI non-inverting loop twist does nothing for them. It seriously looks no different to the Buzzsaw hero shot that used to be at the top of the Parkz forums. For a layperson, you could forgive them for thinking it was buzzsaw with a new colour scheme.

I'm sick of these close up hero shots that show people on the train photoshopped to within an inch of it's life.

Even the members here who have spent hours sitting out in the carpark taking shots at various times of the day - their photos would be a much better marketing - the skyline, the sunset. Nothing conveys the sheer size of this monster (and the white outline as @Roachie rightfully points out does nothing for them either).

Look - i'm sure that VRTP management read Ben's posts with a liberal addition of salt, primarily because of some history, but they need to recognise that whilst some of his motivation and emotion may come from the history, there is nothing incorrect, false or inappropriate with what he's saying. It's true. They've botched this badly. It shows when most people have no idea about the attraction.

Go back and find an ex-rental videotape from the 1990's and you'll find almost every tape associated with VR or WB has the Wild West Falls video trailer. Sure, you can't quite do the same thing with Rivals - 1 there isn't the same story to pitch, and 2 nobody rents videos anymore - but the online \ social \ digital market is what has replaced it.

I wanted to end this little rant with a youtube video of the above WWF commercial, but i can't seem to find it.

[GoGoBoy]

11 hours ago, AlexB said:

I was driving through Mt Gravatt yesterday and caught a billboard for Rivals, and it struck me that the image they use - the CGI train ontop of the CGI non-inverting loop twist does nothing for them. It seriously looks no different to the Buzzsaw hero shot that used to be at the top of the Parkz forums. For a layperson, you could forgive them for thinking it was buzzsaw with a new colour scheme.

I'm sick of these close up hero shots that show people on the train photoshopped to within an inch of it's life.

Even the members here who have spent hours sitting out in the carpark taking shots at various times of the day - their photos would be a much better marketing - the skyline, the sunset. Nothing conveys the sheer size of this monster (and the white outline as @Roachie rightfully points out does nothing for them either).

Look - i'm sure that VRTP management read Ben's posts with a liberal addition of salt, primarily because of some history, but they need to recognise that whilst some of his motivation and emotion may come from the history, there is nothing incorrect, false or inappropriate with what he's saying. It's true. They've botched this badly. It shows when most people have no idea about the attraction.

Go back and find an ex-rental videotape from the 1990's and you'll find almost every tape associated with VR or WB has the Wild West Falls video trailer. Sure, you can't quite do the same thing with Rivals - 1 there isn't the same story to pitch, and 2 nobody rents videos anymore - but the online \ social \ digital market is what has replaced it.

I wanted to end this little rant with a youtube video of the above WWF commercial, but i can't seem to find it.

I nodded so hard while reading Alex’s post above that I got a neck cramp. So, so true. Movie World’s marketing department needs a massive shake-up in my opinion. VRTP marketing needs to go back to the good old days. Back then, the whole country knew when a new attraction had opened.

[Brad2912]

To add another VTP marketing fail...I noticed there were ‘made for tv’ (digitally added) billboards for Rivals on the track fencing during the GC600 2 weeks ago. All it was the logo, and it only took up about 60% of the available black rectangle it was added on. If I wasn’t familiar with the logo and what it was, it would have been completed missed or misunderstood. I can almost guarantee any person not familiar seeing that around the county would I have had zero clue what it was 

[pin142]

Is this the ad you're thinking of @AlexB?
 

 

[rac2703]

On 01/11/2017 at 7:28 AM, AlexB said:

Go back and find an ex-rental videotape from the 1990's and you'll find almost every tape associated with VR or WB has the Wild West Falls video trailer. Sure, you can't quite do the same thing with Rivals - 1 there isn't the same story to pitch, and 2 nobody rents videos anymore - but the online \ social \ digital market is what has replaced it.

They could still do this using the BluRay live feature.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

7 hours ago, pin142 said:

Is this the ad you're thinking of @AlexB?

That'd be the one.

17 minutes ago, rac2703 said:

They could still do this using the BluRay live feature.

Blu-ray is so last decade.

[Coaster Hipster]

It's a shame MW doesn't seem to advertise properly what is such a remarkable product. From the shaky POV to the uninspiring ads in trains... there was potential for so much more!

Not only DC Rivals seems to be a really exciting coaster, it's also one of the most appealing and photogenic I've ever seen. I mean, why bother using this landmark Joker head at the top of the lift hill if you're barely advertising it afterwards?


I'm sure the coaster will be a tremendous success nevertheless, but it will be despite this lacklustre marketing campaign

[GoGoBoy]

If I was the boss of MW's marketing department I would have even gone as far as changing the MW logo to incorporate DC Rival's first drop into it, at least for the first few years of the coaster's operation. The coaster is so major it should be a park-wide takeover type of thing, not just treated as another small addition. Everybody needs to know about it.