SeaWorld Has a New Ad Campaign to Make People Like It Again
Photo Credit: A still image from SeaWorld's new ad campaign. The operator is again running advertisements to counter negative perception about its theme parks. SeaWorld
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SeaWorld has not been able to turn its attendance slide around, and back-to-back hurricanes didn't help. But executives hope to address deeper perception issues — the buzz phrase that's been around for years now — with a new ad campaign.
For his company's latest quarter, SeaWorld Entertainment CEO Joel Manby had some underwhelming words of reassurance: "Absent the significant weather impact from the hurricanes, company-wide our underlying results were largely what we expected them to be."
The problem is that the company already reduced its full-year earnings expectations in the second quarter. And thanks to the impact from hurricanes Harvey and Irma — combined with existing public perception issues and competition from bigger rivals — SeaWorld couldn't even meet that lower bar.
Attendance fell by 732,000 in the quarter that ended September 30, with the biggest drops coming at the SeaWorld parks in San Diego and Orlando. The company has 12 parks and its brands include SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, and Sesame Place. During the quarter, attendance from the UK was down 28 percent year-over-year and visitor numbers from Latin America fell 11 percent.
Revenue dropped 10 percent to nearly $438 million, while profi
