by Juliana Gilling
 “If our park were a personality, we’d be Johnny Knoxville from ‘Jackass,’” says Gareth Arculus, PR manager at Thorpe Park, which helps explain why the British theme park was the focus of some bizarre marketing stunts last year.
April 1, 2009, began with the curious case of “shock jaw,” when a thrill-seekers face apparently froze in fright after he tried “Saw—The Ride,” Thorpe Park’s new Gerstlauer roller coaster based on the horror film franchise.
“We wanted to play with the old wives’ tale that if you pull a funny face and the wind changes, it will stick like that,” recalls Arculus. “It’s about exploiting the little white lies that parents tell children to make them behave.”
It was the first of several out-of-the-box public relations moves the Merlin Entertainments Group-owned facility in Surrey, England, made in 2009. What’s the reasoning behind the renegade program?
Silly Season
On the occasion of the “shock jaw,” the park’s best-laid PR plans were trumped when Jack Tweed, widower of the popular British reality television star Jade Goody, made an unexpected visit to the park with a bunch of paparazzi in tow.
Undeterred, Arculus’s team announced the appointment of Thorpe Park’s first vomit collector—“ex-sick-cutive” Rhys Owen—in time for Easter. August—traditionally the silly season in the British press—kicked off with the news that park managers had introduced a B.O. (body odor) ban to stop visitors from riding Thorpe’s star attractions with their arms in the air.
“We wanted to tap into the British obsession with the weather and generate some fun coverage,” says Arculus. “Summer is when people think, ‘The kids are off school; where can we go?’ We wanted to remind them that Thorpe Park was open and to emphasize the quirky nature of our brand, which we’ve really changed and pushed this year.”
According to Arculus, Thorpe Park’s subversive PR strategy reflects the reinvention of the attraction as the “nation’s thrill capital”: “Merlin Entertainments Group has three theme parks in close proximity in the south [of England]; there’s us, Legoland, and Chessington World of Adventures.
“Obviously, Legoland Windsor has a very strong identity because of the Lego brand. And there was a conscious decision back in the late ’90s—when Thorpe Park and Chessington were part of The Tussauds Group—to redefine the two brands and move the parks forward so that they could coexist,” he adds. “The idea was that Thorpe Park would invest in the big rides and go for the thrill-seeker market, leaving Chessington to target the younger children.”
Today, Thorpe Park’s “key market is 16- to 24-year-olds, with our secondary market the 14- to 34-year-olds,” says Arculus. “We’re looking for ‘up-for-it families’: parents who will go on the rides with their kids, not stand on the sidelines with their coats. We’re trying to make sure that we’re appealing to their nature and sense of humor, which is very lighthearted, edgy, and energizing. Because we want brand loyalty and affinity with the adrenalin junkies out there, we’re able to push boundaries with our PR and marketing activities.”
Scare Tactics
 October saw Thorpe Park’s most controversial stunt yet. “Fright Nights is our optimum event and an established brand in itself,” says Arculus. “We needed to push the message that we’ve got one of the leading horror events in the country. So, on the 13th, we went out with the story that workers had carried out a Ouija board session at the park and that we’d suspended several members of staff in order to appease people who were complaining of unrest and disturbances on ‘Saw—The Ride.’” Media reports emerged that park bosses had called in UK paranormal expert Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe to examine the ride and, if necessary, perform an exorcism.
Other parks might have shied away from such touchy territory, so why were Arculus and his team prepared take the risk? “At the end of the day, we’re never confident that we can get away with anything,” he says. “We’re always planning ahead and taking advice from a number of different people. We look at the media agenda and what’s in the news, but we are willing to push the boundaries further because we’ve got a brand that can take it.
“Obviously we have a lot of ideas, which we bounce around constantly throughout the year. We may throw ideas out the window if we feel like they’re going too far, or we may just go for it and risk it. It depends on the idea. We want to be edgy and risqué, but we don’t want to push things too far. We never want to be out-and-out offensive to anyone. We will deal with instances [of offense] individually if we come across them, but we had no complaints last year.”
Arculus feels lucky to work in an environment that allows “left-field” thinking. “We’ve got a team who thrive on working with a quirky brand; it allows you to be random and creative with your ideas,” he says. “Because we have the right people in place and we’re not targeting families with young children, an edgy strategy works extremely well for us.”
Brand Building
Part of that success stems from people’s growing awareness of what to expect from the Thorpe Park brand. “People are starting to understand who we are,” says Arculus, “We make sure that our unique, irreverent tone of voice comes across in everything we do. We’ve worked hard over the last couple of years to differentiate Thorpe Park and to make it stand out for the key thrill-seeker audience.”
This season sees the full relaunch of the Thorpe Park web site (www.thorpepark.com): “It really distills our new brand guidelines,” says Arculus. “It’s very bright, colorful, vibrant, and young. We’ve created some characters, which you’ll see cropping up on the web site. They will become part of everything we’re doing at the park, with our literature, gate maps, and signage.
“Ultimately, everything we do is about driving volume to the park,” says Arculus. “We want to make people think, ‘Wow, that’s really cool; we want to go there’. I can’t tell you exactly what you can expect from us in 2010, but there’s lots of stuff in the pipeline. We’ll be making ourselves stand out with more insane stunts, great ideas, activities, and marketing.”
Future success depends on keeping the emphasis on entertainment, believes Arculus. “Thorpe Park is a fun brand to play with, it’s a fun place to work, and people come here to have fun. You have to remember that at the end of the day.”
Thorpe Park adds ‘extreme horror attraction’ in 2010
 “’Saw Alive’ is our big news for 2010,” says Gareth Arculus. Billed as “the world’s most extreme horror attraction,” the live-action horror maze debuts in March at Thorpe Park. The experience, which will stay open year round, represents another tie-in with Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures’ “Saw” films.
Visitors will find themselves at the mercy of the movies’ mastermind, Jigsaw, as they pass through six themed rooms, which re-create iconic scenes from the six films released to date. “Having that backstory, which already means something in the public domain, is a huge bonus,” says Arculus.
Arculus hopes “Saw Alive” will help Thorpe Park repeat the “big” year-on-year increase in attendance (from 2008 to 2009) prompted by “Saw–The Ride”’s launch.
“Lionsgate has done a fantastic job with the ‘Saw’ franchise,” he says. “Having that big brand name and recognition, especially among the over-18s, is the biggest driver and help for us. Although balancing the two brands is always going to be difficult, we’ve worked very closely with Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures to ensure that everything we’re doing is benefiting them, the ‘Saw’ brand, and Thorpe Park.”
For more, check out: www.thorpepark.com and www.officialsaw.com.
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Juliana Gilling is a specialist attractions journalist. E-mail: julianagilling@gmail.com.
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