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[Tuesday at NAB]
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Non-Traditional Media Branch Out
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by Jay Ankeney,
~ April 15, 2008
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TV TECHNOLOGY
New advertising opportunities are being created every day, some mixing traditional and non-traditional media to reach a broader audience.
Here to share his innovative experience in such an endeavor is Mark Shapiro, president and chief executive officer of Six Flags, who will keynote “From Theme Park to Third Screen,” today, 5–6 p.m., as part of the Spotlight Series.
Shapiro’s experience in launching the Six Flags Media Network opened a broad avenue of opportunities for him to introduce new content, innovative technologies and experiential marketing alternatives to theme park audiences.
CAPTIVE AUDIENCE
“If you just present an audience with a stream of ads, nobody will pay attention,” Shapiro said. “But if you can integrate those ads into content that piques people’s interest and allows those messages to resonate with their own needs, it will move the consumer toward a call to action by motivating their senses to process the ads in a way that builds a stronger connection with the viewer.”
This new marketing challenge builds on Shapiro’s experience as executive vice president of programming and production at ESPN, where Shapiro was responsible for the development, acquisition, scheduling and marketing of programming for all ESPN channels. In 2001, Shapiro was named one of The Hollywood Reporter’s “35 Promising Executives on the Rise” and in 2003 earned a spot on Entertainment Weekly’s annual “101 Most Powerful People in Show Business.”
Today, advertisers are chasing masses of people to get their messages out. But Shapiro has found that if you can create an emotional connection with the kind of captive audience that is available in a venue like a theme park, the result can be a significant increase in their positive responses.
“From the Six Flags Media Network that we are launching to the radio spots we will be running, to the outdoor advertising we will be presenting and even to the experiential marketing we will be emphasizing inside our parks, we will be exploring the way these products can enhance the audience’s overall interaction with the message we are trying to convey,” Shapiro said. “In the 20 Six Flags facilities across the country we have the opportunity to speak with more than 30 million people who are spending an average of nine hours each day in each park. That gives us a captive audience like none other.”
Under Shapiro’s direction, the entire IT infrastructure of each park has been completely rebuilt. Now, plasma screens are positioned by the most crowded lines at the most popular rides, radio DJs play commercials to people walking around the park and rotational digital signage displays are set up to keep the audience’s interest.
The “third screen” referred to in the title of Shapiro’s address builds on the idea of television being the “first screen” and a desktop PC as the “second screen” to consumers. This third level of communication is the advertising model for bringing proprietary advertising to alternative outlets such as portable phones, PDAs and even theme parks.
“Any time you have immediate access to as many people as we have waiting in line for our most popular rides, you have a laboratory that provides a very attractive platform for advertisers,” Shapiro said. “With the corporate partnerships we have set up to the tune of almost $50 million, we have wide spectrum methodologies for reaching people available for sampling, providing brand awareness and experiential marketing, in an attempt to find contact with hard-to-reach consumers.”
People attending the “From Theme Park to Third Screen” keynote address will learn how to benefit from Shapiro’s techniques to build their own businesses with the help of these innovative alternative advertising opportunities.
“People are harder to reach than ever and the environment for marketing is more fragmented than ever,” Shapiro said. “Non-traditional media provides brand- new options for advertisers to cut through to their audience.”
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