Background

Daytona Lagoon is a waterpark and family entertainment center (FEC) located in the heart of Daytona Beach in Central Florida with an annual attendance of over 150,000 guests. The FEC is open year-round, and the waterpark is seasonal. Because of Florida’s warm climate, the waterpark season is long and stretches from March to October. Daytona Beach is a tourism-driven market with summer being the peak season. Dion Marketing Company is a full-service agency and agency of record for Daytona Lagoon.

Framing the Challenge

In the wake of forced closures and limited capacity due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Daytona Lagoon was faced with the challenge of not only generating excitement and enthusiasm about the start of the 2021 waterpark season with little capital to fund the effort since the park was closed during peak times in the 2020 season but also to position itself as a clean and safe place for families to visit. Daytona Lagoon needed an inexpensive solution to entice tourist families to visit their clean, safe, and family-friendly waterpark and family entertainment center. In 2019, the park invested $1.5 million in new waterslide attractions, which made it less challenging to attract visitors. But 2021, coming off the pandemic with no new rides in two summers, set up the marketing firm for a challenge.

Uncovering Insights & Building Opportunity

*A landing page with details about the new mascot and its origin story was added to the website. Click to view in full.*

Daytona Lagoon decided to invest in a new mascot since this would be an extremely cost-effective and exciting way to drum up interest for the upcoming waterpark season and would appeal to the family-friendly clientele they were hoping to target. Dion Marketing Company was tasked with rolling out the mascot to the public.

First, Dion Marketing Company created a name and persona for the mascot, which would be later revealed to the public, determining that he would be a yeti that ended up in Daytona Beach, FL after searching for the place where he could find his fun.

In order to pique the interest of the Daytona Beach community with little to no budget, Dion Marketing Company created a marketing strategy that included a robust social media campaign with a focus on user interaction, public relations outreach, special event, and partnership marketing.

Dion Marketing coordinated the production of a photo and video shoot using iPhones, created digital graphics, and wrote an origin story for “Sunny the Yeti” which were all used for the mascot reveal campaign. The campaign consisted of riddles and clues as well as teaser videos that hinted at the identity of the mascot. Users were encouraged to guess the identity of the mascot and Dion Marketing Company coordinated a contest in which the guest who correctly guessed the mascot’s name would get free waterpark tickets.

In conjunction with the social media campaign, Dion Marketing Company planned a mascot reveal event in order to generate even more buzz around the waterpark opening for the season and its new mascot. Prior to the event, Dion Marketing wrote a series of press releases which were picked up by the local and regional media outlets.

*Press releases were picked up by local and regional media outlets. Click to view article in full.*

Dion Marketing also developed a partnership between Daytona Lagoon and local charity, Every Kid Swims, a non-profit organization that is dedicated to leveraging the therapeutic values of water-based activities as a catalyst to empower foster and at-risk youth to develop healthy mental health habits. The organization brought 30 foster children to the event, and Sunny the Yeti was revealed for the first time to these children and guests in attendance as the new mascot of Daytona Lagoon. He was met with open arms. Dion Marketing also coordinated with the local minor league baseball team to have their mascot at the event to welcome Sunny to the Daytona community, generating further excitement.

Following the reveal, Sunny was the figurehead for Daytona Lagoon’s Water Safety Month campaign in May. In addition to sending out a press release highlighting the campaign, Dion Marketing Company also took to social media to share safety tips with customers using Sunny as the spokesperson for the effort.

Dion Marketing has continued the momentum of the excitement that Sunny the Yeti brings to Daytona Lagoon by featuring Sunny the Yeti in ad campaigns and social media marketing as the spokesperson for the waterpark.

Tracking Success

Following the social media campaign and mascot reveal event, Daytona Lagoon saw a sizable increase in the social media interaction with a 4x spike in new followers following the campaign. The estimated media value from public relations efforts was valued at over $16,000. This year, Daytona Lagoon has enjoyed its most successful season to date with a 125% increase in overall revenue when compared to 2019, the best year for revenue and attendance in the park’s history.