CASE STUDY: OCEAN PARK HONG KONG

Category: Resorts and amusement parks

Brand custodian: Paul Pei, executive

director, sales and marketing

The problem: Ocean Park had lost around

$80 million and a cumulative $200 million and,

as Pei says, “the red blood was fl owing” by the

time he was brought in by the executive team

as its head of marketing. Many locals expected

the park would close down, particularly as the

government had just committed an enormous

sum of money to woo Disney to its Lantau

Island site. Ocean Park was an old and tired

brand and no one knew what it stood for.

The strategy: Pei went back to the basics

of sales and marketing, and the four Ps. He

ripped out a tired sales and marketing team,

energised the ones whom he thought could

make it and reversed the sense that Ocean

Park was finished by making sure it innovated,

through new products that closely tracked

what he knew customers wanted. He got aggressively

on the front foot to differentiate his

product and brand from Disney, and made

sure everyone and every communication enhanced

that. A series of campaigns were run

to build local loyalty like the “Love Ocean Park,

Love Hong Kong” work.

Results: Pei says Ocean Park is one of the few

regional parks in a neighbourhood Disney has

entered that not only didn’t lose the obligatory

20% business but actually added that much

business. In fi scal year 2005-2006 a record 4.4

million guests went through the gates, revenues

of $538.8 million in admissions and $189.5

million in in-park spending were achieved. The

park also experienced a 66% rise in renewal of

annual passes.

The story : Not long after taking up the post

of marketing chief at Ocean Park, Paul Pei was

sitting in the back of taxi riding to the sprawling

Aberdeen site, when the taxi driver casually

enquired: “So where are you going to work

next?” It’s not like Pei hadn’t heard it before.

So convinced was Hong Kong that Ocean

Park would close, after the announced arrival

of Disney, there was no doubt the staff must

already be updating their CVs.

“There was never any doubt in my mind

that we’d make it but Hong Kong thought we

wouldn’t,” Pei, who came to the role from a

background in luxury hotels, says.

The first thing obviously wrong to Pei was

the people working at the park in sales and

marketing. The second thing was the brand…

no one knew what it was.

Pei’s back to basics approach initially

meant standing out with the rest of the guests

and listening to what they were saying about

the park. “It was very obvious what was wrong.

We had a product that was old, it was tired

it was grey, that’s what everybody said, there

wasn’t anyone talking about the product,” he

says.

“I brought in sales people so hungry they

must have been starving for years.”

Once there was a motivated sales team

in place Pei also developed a public relations

team when he found the park had no one to go

out and “tell our good stories”.

It was an important time to communicate

with the media because with the imminent arrival

of Disney Pei didn’t want the public hearing

nothing but “Mickey, Mickey, Mickey”.

The marketing and management teams

then turned to the ‘product’ and set about fi xing

up the park, it is currently undergoing major

works which will take six full years to complete

and will double the parks attractions.

Positioning was the next P. After his grassroots

market research inside and outside the

park Pei knew the differentiator for Ocean Park

had to be the animals. This led to the creation

of a lot more opportunities to interact with the

animals including spending a day with the giant

pandas, breakfast in the aquarium or interacting

with jelly fi sh in an ambitious new display.

The animal strategy was then moved into

external communications under the “Love

Animals, Love Ocean Park” tag and campaign,

the campaign was also pushed through new

platforms with an SMS quiz which Pei says attracted

more than 100,000 responses.

His team also introduced special seasonal

events to spike attendance at certain times like

Halloween, Christmas and Chinese New Year,

and also created an offering of corporate visits

to make use of the park in the evenings when it

was traditionally dormant.

It was all to try to position the park as different

and unique to what the big blunt marketing

instrument, that is Disney, was bringing to

Ocean Park’s doorstep.

The next P was price and Pei wasn’t prepared

to drop his. “You can discount yourself

to oblivion but you can never discount yourself

to profitability so I said lets concentrate on giving

value for the money they pay,” he says.

The annual pass was another differentiator

for Ocean Park because Disney (originally)

didn’t offer one. Pei likes it because it creates

loyalty and a real sense of value.

“I love that you think you are taking me for a

ride,” Pei says with genuine delight.

Then there’s promotion and Pei knew he

needed something or someone to promote

to the public – he needed a Mickey. Enter a

sea lion named Whiskers, a sea lion character,

who was developed from a live audition of

potential mascots. When people think of the

Ocean Park brand now they inevitably turn to

Whiskers either the graphic version or the furry

suited one – Pei knows this because he went

out on heartlands road show tours with him

and asked the public who, in large numbers

could associate Whiskers with the park.

Pei knows Ocean Park is in good shape

as a brand now but knows that’s not just him

but the motivated staff, the public’s perception,

internal and external communications, all

wrapped around a single brand idea.

Conclusion: Listen to the customers, find or

reinvigorate the brand idea and relentlessly

push that through internal and external communications.

Never forget the basics.