3 Case Studies of Enhancing Your Brand

MarketingSherpa.com
by Daniel Burnstein

B2C Branding: 3 quick case studies of enhancing the brand with a better customer experience

Branding is more than a logo or tagline.

A successful brand ties directly to a customer's desire through every interaction with that brand.

To help your brand identify what customers want and better serve them, read on for examples from L'Oréal, Temple University, and an amusement park.

“Brand is the aggregate experience of the value proposition,” said Flint McGlaughlin, CEO and Managing Director, MECLABS Institute (for more, see The Myth of the Brand Promise: The 3 biggest reasons brand projects fail to positively impact results).

Most branding discussions revolve around color schemes, logos, naming rights, and distinctive designs.

But every customer touchpoint is a brand experience…every interaction your company has with a potential customer impacts the customer’s perception of your brand. Here are some examples…

First up in this article, we bring you a story of an amusement park that created a mascot to not only brand itself to a customer persona but also deliver a better experience for that group. Next, Temple University unifies previously disparate brand interactions around the high-quality digital experience its potential customers had come to expect thanks to their experiences with other brands. And finally, L'Oréal taps into customer discussions about its product type to ensure the brand experience customers have before they purchase – it’s advertising – speaks the customer’s language.

Quick Case Study #1: Mascot reveal campaign helps amusement park increase attendance by 49%

In 2019, Daytona Lagoon made a major investment in two waterslides – “Kraken’s Revenge,” a 50-foot-high four-lane slide that takes riders through a high-speed skylight tunnel, as well as the “Shaka Halfpipe,” a float ride built on a pendulum-style, 50-foot-tall half-pipe design. This type of investment typically attracts older teens and young adults.

For 2021, the amusement park shifted its focus to a different customer persona and created a mascot. “Having the mascot has enhanced our promotional and marketing efforts with our younger families, which is a balance we strive for [between] our family-friendly audiences and thrill seekers who love to ride waterslides,” explains Tyler Currie, General Manager, Daytona Lagoon.

To introduce the mascot, the team posted a teaser video on social media and invited customers to guess what type of creature the mascot was. The teaser video was accompanied by a press release. After the teaser video, they released a series of five riddles on social media for the customers to try to guess the mascot’s identity.

After all five riddles were revealed, the family entertainment center posted an image of the mascot, which was a Yeti. Customers then engaged in a contest where they could name the Yeti and the best submission would win four waterpark general admission tickets. The contest received 582 entries.

Creative Sample #1: Name the mascot contest for amusement park

The team selected Sunny as the winning name.

“The Yeti also gave us a reason to create a media event, which, in turn, ultimately promotes Daytona Lagoon,” said Julie Dion, President and Lead Account Manager, Dion Marketing Company (the park’s marketing agency).

Since the launch, Sunny the Yeti has attended events and was the spokesperson for the amusement park’s Water Safety Month Campaign in May. Participation in the water safety program increased by 320% this year.

Although the team cannot attribute all of its increase preformance to the mascot addition, 2021 has been a record-breaking year for attendance and revenue – 2019 was the park’s best year historically, and for 2021 year to date, attendance is up 49% over 2019.

The Yeti also makes an appearance at birthday parties by visiting the party rooms when the birthday honoree and guests are celebrating to enhance the experience of families with young children. “So far, birthdays are up 29% over 2019, which is strong considering some people are still not comfortable attending parties because of the global pandemic,” Dion said.

If you’re considering a mascot for your brand, here is one last operational tip – you may be wondering how to make a Yeti mascot costume bearable for an employee in the hot summer sun. The costume has ice packs throughout the inside of the uniform.  Although the ice packs help keep the employee cool, it makes the uniform heavier to wear. Daytona Lagoon has an employee limit of 15 minutes at a time inside the uniform since it is not comfortable. The park has also recently created a hiring incentive, offering all of its employees a $500 cash bonus for working a certain amount of time over the summer, which has helped improve any staffing issues.

“The mascot uniform is visually limiting, too, which means that the mascot needs a handler to help it walk around to avoid running into anything, tripping and falling. For anyone else considering a mascot for its brand, it is important to know for budgeting purposes that two people need to be staffed each time an appearance is scheduled,” Dion said.

And don’t forget the mascot’s uniform as well. “Finding a seamstress to make board shorts for it was one of our biggest challenges!” laughs Currie.