The Market Mix and ThorpePark.

The Market Mix and Thorpe Park

Thorpe Park is very good at marketing and getting the results it wants. This is because they follow the 4 P’s, otherwise known as the Marketing Mix. The 4 P’s for the park are:

Place – The location of the park
Product – The rides and other products in the park
Price – the pricing strategies the park uses
Promotion – Sales promotions, promotional campaigns, offers, and third party promotions.

The park is located in a very good spot. It is surrounded by water which can be used as a river, and also attracts people as it can be used for the wet rides. It also attracts people as it is very attractive to be surrounded by water, as there are nice views. The park uses the water to it’s advantage on the rides too, for example on Vortex, there are parts of the ride where it looks asif you are going to land in the water, which can be very scary, causing the ride to be more thrilling which achieves the rides target to be frightening. The park is situated only 20 miles from the centre of London and is very close to the M25 and M3, so it has good access roads for people which have to travel a distance to get there. The park has two train stations near it, one of these being Staines station, which is only five minutes away by bus. Staines Station has regular trains going to and from it, and also a train direct to Staines from London waterloo, with a shuttle bus going straight to the park, from the station every 30 minutes. If all else fails, there is a coach from Victoria to Thorpe park, or just by entering your postcode on the website, they will find the nearest places to get a coach from. With the park being so near to London, and with so many ways of getting to the park, it makes it easier for people to come from further away, attracting a lot more customers.

Thorpe Park has lots of different products; from the different food they serve like burger king or cheesy nachos (there are 27 shops that sell food in the park altogether), the souvenirs for each ride, (including photo’s, t-shirts and lots of different novelty gifts like mugs and sweets) and the actual rides themselves. I am going to show you a product life cycle of some of the rides in Thorpe Park, to show the different stages that rides are at.

Product life cycle of five rides at Thorpe Park

Vortex

Eclipse

...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Product life cycle of five rides at Thorpe Park

Vortex

Eclipse

Nemesis

Colossus Detonator

This graph shows that Nemesis is still at the beginning of its growth, that Colossus, Detonator and Vortex are near the height of there growth, and that Eclipse is declining. The reasons I have for these findings are as follows:

Nemesis is a new ride at Thorpe Park, and always seems to have a long queue for it, normally at least 1 hour.
Colossus, although this is an older ride, always has one of the longest queues in the park, although the queue is gradually getting shorter over time.
Detonator is also one of the older rides, but it is still very popular for all the people who are daredevils, although the appeal for this ride is wearing off.
Vortex is a popular ride, but people don’t come to the park especially for this ride anymore, whereas with the rides above, they do.
Eclipse is not very popular, except when it’s raining when people use it to stay dry. It is a very slow, boring big wheel and even little children find it dull. There is never more then a 5 minute queue.

As Thorpe Park is a successful business, people have heard of it and don’t mind paying that extra bit to use there services. Thorpe Park has very high prices to get into the park, at up to nearly £30 for one person. Instead of going to Thorpe Park someone could buy three albums or some DVD’s, but thousands of people decide to go to Thorpe Park instead, everyday. This is because everyone has heard of the park and wants to go on their ‘scary’ rollercoaster’s to show their friends that they have more nerve then them, and to prove a point that they don’t get scared easiest. This shows how successful the park is, as even though it is expensive to visit, people still do.

There new advertising campaign promotes the phrase “Twisted Pleasure”, saying how it’s a different and twisted way to have fun, but also a metaphor of how you get twisted on the rides. This is encouraging older people to come to the park, as it was originally made for younger children. Thorpe Park has joined there advertising branch with Chessington World of Adventures, to make both more popular and to swap both of the age groups around, to make Chessington for family fun.

I conclude that Thorpe Park is a very successful business, due to its careful procedure of following the 4 P’s.