Last week in between Techcrunch50 and Thinktank events in California I took my wife & kids to Seaworld in San diego.
Now its $65 for adults to get in and $55 for kids 3-9 years of age. Not a bad deal. Park admission gets you into all the main shows and rides.
As a student of marketing I am always looking for the angles.
Seaworld has all the standard crazy markup on food and beverages you would find at any park in the world. The $15 free refill Shamu collector cup, $8 for a funnel cake with whip cream, ice cream and strawberrys (omg was it good though), … etc etc.
Here are a couple business/marketing items that got my motor going though:
The Arcade:
The arcade area is a lot like many carnival arcade areas. Throw the ring on the bottle, throw softballs in the basket, shoot basketballs into the hoop. But the big difference was these were legit games. Anyone with any amount of skill could fork over $5 and win a prize.
Now where it got interesting is the prize model. You win 1 small prize for completing the task. 3 small prizes lets you trade up to a giant prize. And the giant prize is substantially larger. The small prizes are about the size of Paris Hiltons dog and the giant size is fricking enormous. Its like the size of a real orca (baby) killer whale:
Now I did not win this legitimately. I just asked the dude if I could give him 30 bucks for one and he said OK. I know, I know, it would have been cool if I actually would have won it but sorry I just greased the guy working the stand.
Lemme give you a example of what I did see from someone playing the game:
- Dude buys his 5 balls for $10
- Dude makes 1 of the 5 balls for 1 small stuffed animal.
- Dude gets another 5 balls for $10
- Dude makes 1 of the 5 balls for 1 small stuffed animal. (now he has 2 of 3 needed for a big prize and a crowd starts to gather to cheer him on).
- Dude gets another 5 balls for $10 – Makes 0
- Dude gets another 5 balls for $10 – Makes 0
- Dude gets another 5 balls for $10 – Makes 0
- Dude gets another 5 balls for $10 – Makes 0
This went on for a while and I got bored. Eventually I heard the crowd roar as he made his final basket to get his 3 small stuffed animals and claim his large Shamu.
I am guessing the guy invested about $100.00 or so for his giant stuffed Shamu where I only invested $30.00 for mine (and much less time).
Some interesting take aways from the game:
1) Low point of entry and lots of pricing options. You can get 1 shot for $3, 2 shots for $5 or 5 shots for $10.
2) People who just make 1 basket get a piece of junk small animal and you still profit.
3) The more pressure mounts the more money there is to be made. If a guy has $50 invested and its only another $10 to keep going he will probably do it (until he is broke).
4) Just offer to grease people. Its way cheaper and saves you both time. What can they do say no?
Feeding The Stingrays:
Seaworld had this section where you could feed the Bat Stingrays. It cost you $6.00 for 4 fish and they would come up to you and eat the fish right out of your hand.
Ok now this is awesome.
Seaworld has to feed these fish anyway but its such a cool experience for you to do it that you are willing to pay to feed them.
I mean that’s like me saying hey come to my office and I will charge you 50$ to buy me KFC.
But how can we adapt this model to what we are already doing online? Maybe we already do.
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2414 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 63 comments… read them below or add one }
Excellent analysis, Jeremy…particularly with the stingrays!
I can almost see a great correlation with an audience member’s ownership of a particular message. The question that could be posed is how do we package the message so it becomes in the audience member’s best interests to pass it on, particularly in ways beyond monetary incentives?
You can also tell any employee that a seagull took your food or drink, and you get it replaced, no questions asked. I like to buy the large beer and drink free the rest of the day due to “seagulls knocking my beer over”
that’s the best deal when you go to a park ….
Sometimes , they say no when you ask to pay for a bigger prize.. because they know they make way more money when you try again and again until you get your big prize
i like it
Excellent observations! You’re so right. Theme parks have a captive audience. It’s fascinating to watch their marketing messages in action. We went to Six Flags this summer and all day long they kept announcing that it’s the nations cleanest theme park. ?? Lol. There were cleaning staff everywhere. Certainly made you aware of doing your part to keep it clean though. Brainwashing?
So that means you should keep yourself ready to pay money at every corner of this seaworld.
I do not think that this is a right move to any business.
Cool post, Shoe. I like it when you make us think about what we are actually doing online and compare it to online marketing.
I think a lot of make money online/make money blogs follow the feed the stingray model.
Readers get to read about useful software, websites, and programs that can help them become more successful. The writers get money for the readers getting the product.
Small price/small return and scaling investment is also something the blogging community does.
You start with something small and simple… a domain, hosting, and maybe aweber. Then there are the keyword research programs that cost a lot more and get you invested more. Finally, there are the big mastermind packages going for $495.
Very interesting, when is Shoemoney going to open a Seaworld??
that would be retarded
Ha!
Diversify!!!
Feed the Jeremy!
Only $7 per piece of KFC chicken
Only at SeaWorld….
He’ll eat it out of your hand! j/k LOL
I think the closest we get to the stingray example, is hiring young people as interns, to work for free, and giving them our busy work that gives them very little real world experience, but makes our job easier, for free…
Hehe, nice deal on the dolphin! Great times at seaworld
Very intressting article.
I actually went to the Toronto Exhibition center recently, and notice the same pattern.
I did what you did as well shoe, ended up “selling” the girl there on giving me a bigger toy (for the gf) and the guy next to me kept spending his cash until he won his bigger toy, lol.
A good guest post is comparable: a visitor provides something they’re expecting from you when coming to your site (content). They get the link back (‘experience’) and you don’t have to spend your time equity to create content (‘money for fish’).
Isn’t having someone pay to feed you what web 2.0 is all about? I suppose they don’t pay in dollars, but they contribute the content which you profit from. Reddit, digg, youtube, squidoo, hubpages, etc all work with this business model.
Shoe — I really got a ton of respect for you, man, for sharing these kind of clever insights. It’s good to learn small lessons from the big guys…how else will we grow and profit?
I just want to say thanks again and again.
I’m with you on the carnival games- 1) unless you have kids, the prizes aren’t worth it (they should start stocking electronics and trip vouchers), 2) by the time you’ve paid your way up to the jackpot, you’ve probably spent more than the cost of admission. The theme parks have figured out some great marketing models, definitely a good strategy to look at what they’re doing and try to duplicate it.
So basically you buy food for their fish by paying them, not that sounds ridiculous.
Arcades used to be the bane of my existence whenever I took Honorable One and Honorable Boy Two down to the boardwalk – they see all these colorful games of chance and go bananas wanting to, and I quote, “Pay for the experience.”
However, there is hope – nowadays they just point out to me the “calls to action” for people to waste their money.
I love that you were still thinking about marketing the whole time you were there, and trying to figure out their angles.
Excellent scam with the stuffed toys. Much better than the one where winning is just about impossible.
I remember a stall once where the “skill challenge” was ridiculously easy–like you’d be able to do it 90% of the time, and they just made the value of the items you could “win” less than the cost of trying to win them.
They also would let you buy additional attempts to get pricier items for the same price, BUT if you failed the challenge you forfeited the earlier prize as well.
“I mean that’s like me saying hey come to my office and I will charge you 50$ to buy me KFC.?” – Now that’s hilarious (and true). Maybe you can charge to comment here?
moral of the story = start your own online carnival game site and have people fill out email submits for balls to throw genius…
shoe im actually liking these posts of relating AM to some everyday situations helps ya think out side the box hope they continue..
I think you are already doing that with your “SEO Tools” that you developed for internal use initially, and now, you are charging people for it. You still had to develop it for yourself and now people are paying for that development cost. Ring any bell?
First of all, it’s cool how you draw parallels betwwen something like seaworld and IM. It’s like an engineer looking to nature for inspiration on a design. Secondly, I’m on a mobile and your site looks awesome on a mobile.
It’ s interesting that you have learned business lesson going at the seaworld. You really had a great time.
This is fascinating, Shoe. Not sure if the ball one had been done online. But the feeding fish one is for sure.
The feeding fish one is similar model to software or online game launches where they let you into the “paid beta” test, while they perfect the product.
I’m surprised you think $65 is a good deal for admission. How is that any kind of a bargain when you’re still paying a la carte for everything inside. Disney knows how to do this without making you feel like you’re getting gouged, which I always do at SeaWorld.
I laughed at your KFC comment but I bet you could get a handful of people to pay you $50 to buy you KFC. Then again, you also though Neil would lose to Shannon in arm wrestling…
Here also ROI analysis..
Nice attitude that you learned even from entertaining sea world. I think, everyone need to go there, to learn it.
Well I still think that 65$ for admission is an ok price, the pictures from there are great and it also is a great experience for kids!
Well I still think that 65$ for admission is an ok price, the pictures from there are great and it also is a great experience for kids!
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!
The arcade is a bit like the whole DLC / addon pack system for computer games.
Take World of Warcraft for example – you pay a base price for the game and spend ages grinding away to be the best you can be, only to find that Blizzard have released an expansion that requires you to pay more money to reach the new higher goal.
The only difference is that each time you reach the best prize, they show you a better prize for just a couple more dollars!
Well the fish feeding thing definitely sounds like Web 2.0, lets the users do the work! And the stuffed animal scheme is just like skillgames, I’d say.
Disney and universal will funnel you into a store after every ride you do. I think that is a good tactic to get people to buy things, and some of the stuff are cheaply made also. Greg Ellison
The reason the big prize is so big is it makes it go viral when tons of people see other people walking around the park with them. It makes people want one too and ask where they won them. It helps drive traffic.
beautiful daughter you got there..! I love penguins too! hahaha..
Lol… Great post. I love how you bring a marketing spin to just about everything in life…. Good stuff.
I love the example of buying the stuffed animal, that’s a good business (and life) analogy. Great points to take away from that!
Turning a trip into a marketing lesson is a great thing. Arcades and amusement parks know exactly what they are doing. They make it easy to win the junk prize and then keep telling your kids to look at the bigger prize. I never thought of trying to buy the big prize outright though. I wonder if the park found out what they would say?
That is awesome! I love the idea about charging the low fee for getting started and expect people to come back over and over.
Gave me an idea!
Seaworld is so expensive now! We are planning a trip for next summer; guess I better tell the kids to start saving up!
nice lesson . i know what are they doing to make money … yeah .. you are right shoe
Seaworld is so expensive now! We are planning a trip for next summer; guess I better tell the kids to start saving up!
Hey Jeremy,
It’s one helluva dangerous post…….
Truly rocking!
I loved it simply to see that:
You can learn business & save money without any restriction of place & mood. Just need to keep eyes open.
You can enjoy while learning & earn by just sharing it.
Truly insightful!
Hi Jeremy,
It nice that you learn a good business lesson from world and you share with us. Most of us just hungry about learning such type of business lesson.
A good place to take lesson in business, if you want to start a new business and want its strategy then Go To SeaWorld, LOL
Shoe you’re missing the point.. no doubt the guy blew away 100 bucks and got a stuffed toy for 30.. if he really wanted the toy he could’ve gotten it at Toys R Us…i blow away my money just to get some kick out of it… so it’s the fun he paid for…
So consider the 70 bucks as payment for the thrill…
I was there with my family and it’s 5 of us. There is no throll in spending that kind of money…at least not for me…
Peter Ralph
PS. I have also done what Jeremy has done and just “bought” the stuff animal, you are paying a tad more than retail but still better than way more.. gotta keep the kids happy
Nice article. So true.
Just one pet peeve of mine:
You did not “invest” money when you bought the stuffed animal. You bought it. “Invest” is to “expend money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result by putting it into financial schemes, shares, or property, or by using it to develop a commercial venture.”
Your daughter looks a little happier with her prize than you do!
Many foreign readers of this blog may not understand what you mean when you write ‘ Dude buys his balls… ‘
Good grief.
and i care cause
Interesting post. Its good to learn lessons from the world around us. Thanks for sharing
hi Sheomoney
You are very famus.onday i will be famus like you
That’s quite a financial lesson you have gleaned. My learning experience at Sea World was limited to the concept of “if it smells like fish, eat that dish – but if it smells like cologne, leave that thang alone.”
Spoil sport, anyone can go to a shop and buy something, win it like a real man – hehe!