Funworld January 2008

Can We Blog,Too?

by Juliana Gilling

As young consumers move online, companies are scrambling to understand and exploit Web 2.0 technologies

Are you ready for the Web 2.0 world? Cynthia Gordon, vice president of new media at the Universal Orlando Resort, recalls her own trepidation last year with the news that the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is coming to Universal’s Islands of Adventure. Eschewing the traditional press conference, the company orchestrated the announcement via seven Harry Potter webmasters, who Gordon calls “the AP of the HP world.”

At the time, she says, the marketing team thought, “Wow, what a big risk we’re taking. We had press materials, and we were ready to roll, but we were asking ourselves, is this enough? Don’t we need a physical event?”

Gordon needn’t have worried. Following the webcast that revealed the agreement with Warner Bros. Entertainment to build the new “island” by 2010, UniversalOrlando.com saw a 400 percent spike in traffic. Fans and media flocked to the online press room—pushing numbers up from 30,000 to 1.5 million in one day, with many visitors coming directly from fan sites such as MuggleNet.com. “If you Google ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Universal Orlando,’ you’ll come up with an astounding number of hits,” says Gordon. “That all started with seven people. We’ll never go back to doing things the old way.”

Online Oomph
Web 2.0, a term coined by Dale Dougherty and popularized by O’Reilly Media, loosely refers to a category of Internet-based applications characterized by consumer interactivity, collaboration, and community. In this new digital era, individuals are sharing unprecedented amounts of information, audio, video, and photographs through web sites, blogs, message forums, chatrooms, and other social networking sites. These days, anyone with a computer can set up shop on the Internet for free and talk about an attraction through blogging services such as Wordpress and Typepad, or sites including Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia, and MySpace.

Evidence of the Web 2.0 phenomenon is widespread, although statistics are changing rapidly. As of September, Technorati was tracking more than 107 million weblogs. There are some 57 million blog readers in the United States alone, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Around 39 percent of American online users had read blogs in February 2006, up from 27 percent a year earlier.

On the other side of the Atlantic, figures from Nielsen/NetRatings show social networking site Facebook saw its British audience grow by 541 percent between December 2006 and August 2007. Almost half of Britain’s online users (15.3 million people) had visited at least one of the 10 most popular social networks in August, highlighting the surging interest in this form of communication.

Web 2.0 tools are enabling groups to quickly and easily keep in touch with each other. Forget the old model, where people received controlled doses of news via mainstream media. Today’s audiences, especially younger consumers, are looking to multiple networks for fresh, candid, and realtime sources of information.

“Parks have to be ready for criticism, justified or not, in this new media space,” says Robert Niles, editor of ThemeParkInsider.com. “Those that show a healthy attitude, and the ability not to take themselves too seriously, will win a great deal of love from the online world. Those that can’t, well, I hope they have a plan to transition to an older, less online-savvy audience.”

Control vs. Credibility
Companies need to adapt to reach consumers who are increasingly screening out brands through filters such as TiVo, commercial-free radio, iPods, and RSS feeds, says Duncan Wardle, vice president for global PR integration for The Walt Disney Company. Blogs and other technologies provide an opportunity for firms to slip beneath people’s radar. But businesses must prepare for a radical shift in mindset. “We’ve all enjoyed message control,” he says, “but now there is a set of scales. One says message control and the other says credibility. You can have message control, but you’ll have no credibility.

The Disney Dream Jobs campaign featured on Careerbuilder.com gave people the chance to become a Disney Cast Member for the day, choosing between roles such as a Jungle Cruise skipper, a Haunted Mansion butler, a princess-in-waiting, or a Disney pirate.

“One year ago we gave up control and we let the consumer choose. We allowed people to go online at CareerBuilder.com and apply to become a Disney Cast Member for the day—it was called ‘Disney Dream Jobs.’ Tens of thousands of applicants from all over the world sent us video auditions. Allowing consumers to create their own content was a lot of fun. We were engaging with people who probably would have screened us out of their lifestyle. They weren’t necessarily thinking about a park vacation—they were going to CareerBuilder.com to get a job. We then allowed the consumers to choose who would win. That was a big give for a company used to control.”

The experience gave Wardle and the Disney team the confidence to launch an online moms’ panel. “It’s completely transparent,” he says. “Moms can come online and say whatever they want. Companies that will thrive in the future will be those who engage with consumers and get them involved in developing better products and services. It’s all about taking a smart risk.”

Courting the ‘Prosumer’
Web 2.0 is “one big experiment,” says Gordon. “We’re all learning as we go. Peer-to-peer knowledge is here to stay, and the new media has spawned some 300 million critics. While we’re not abandoning traditional techniques, we do have to think through—with every launch and program—how digital can be part of our communications plans. We’re considering how community groups, fan sites, and bloggers will influence our message. We’re going where our customers are and involving ourselves in their natural conversations.” Shrewd companies are courting top bloggers and special interest sites, which are largely written by “pro-sumers” (professional consumers). It is crucial that this group of individuals tends to be trusted by their peers. Knowledgeable and well connected, these online communities offer market research and marketing opportunities.

ThemeParkInsider’s Niles points to the successful online promotion of Halloween events: “HalloweenHorrorNights.com has become a destination web site for fans of Universal Studios’ annual event. It incorporates original video and text content and drives the storyline behind the event. Fans respond to that. We have readers on ThemeParkInsider.com who spend the entire year waiting for clues about what will be happening with next year’s Halloween Horror Nights. Universal helps support that by feeding information to bloggers, discussion group leaders, and other gatekeepers to the online fan community.”

Gordon makes it easy for the special interest sites: “We give them the tools they need to do their jobs well. We make sure the information is usable in the online world. That might mean easily digestible sound bites, low and high-res video, or behind-the-scenes podcasts.”

Baby Steps
Outside of Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom (www.vmk.com), there hasn’t yet been a major attempt by a park to create its own online social network, says Niles. Wardle and Gordon, though, are both involved in debates about creating official blogs and new media networks—internally as well as externally.

Companies entering the blogosphere should start with the communities that already exist, suggests Niles. “Parks’ efforts to date have been directed toward establishing presence through the independent online fan communities. Designate ride and show designers to blog on those sites and hang out in discussion boards. Assign customer service reps to participate on boards and answer questions consumers have about tickets and schedules. Submit discussion threads and blog posts about new shows, rides, and deals. Treat audiences with respect. Acknowledge that consumers have options and make a strong case for what you’ve got. Nouns and verbs are best. Lose the adjectives and marketing hype that we’ll just mock after you post.”

Businesses should build a genuine, twoway dialogue with bloggers and online users, he continues, adopting a conversational tone: “Messages that worked with TV and print reporters won’t work in the frank and honest space of a blog or discussion forum. If parks can find, and trust, the right personalities to represent them online, they can help ensure that the young marketplace continues to see theme parks as a premier entertainment option.”

Reach out to your online advocates today, urges Wardle: “Harness their passion and credibility to tap into an audience that you might not be able to reach in three to five years’ time. It’s the most costeffective and affordable kind of campaign because other people want to do the work for you.”

Juliana Gilling is an attractions journalist and commentator who spends far too much time online. She is the former editor of Attractions Management magazine and has reported on the industry for more than 13 years. E-mail: julianagilling@gmail.com.