Marketing the Thrill: Inside the Amusement Ride Industry with Jay AguilarMarketing the Thrill: Inside the Amusement Ride Industry with Jay Aguilar

Marketing the Thrill: Inside the Amusement Ride Industry with Jay Aguilar Transcript:

Jeff White: Welcome to The Kula Ring, a podcast for manufacturing marketers brought to you by Kula Partners. My name is Jeff White. Joining me today is Carman Pirie. Carman, how are you doing, sir? 

Carman Pirie: I’m doing great. I managed even to sneak in a drink of water there in the last second. I was feeling like it was counting down, as I knew you were going to be handing me the mic.

Jeff White: What a seasoned pro at the timing you are now. 

Carman Pirie: Yeah, no. Something like that. Yeah. More seasoned, I suppose. I didn’t actually talk about it, but whatever. But no, it is great to be recording another episode with you, Jeff, and today’s show. It’s standard, or somewhat often in the space of manufacturing, where we encounter companies and people who are like that.? Because it’s often manufacturing something that’s a component of something else, and you don’t often just think about it or what have you.

But this is a bit different because this is intellectual, that there’s somebody out there making this and building these things, but you just assume you’re never gonna talk to ’em or something. I don’t know what it is, but it’s just a really fun category, and I’m really interested to see where today’s conversation leads.

Jeff White: Yeah. I as well. And shout out to our producer, Rich, for continuing to find us interesting guests in industries that we have never actually had an opportunity to speak with somebody in.

Carman Pirie: Exactly. Yeah. 

Jeff White: So joining us today is Jay Aguilar. Jay is the Global Vice President of Business Development and Marketing at Chance Rides, and they make roller coasters, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show, Jay. 

Jay Aguilar: Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Definitely. It’s a very interesting industry, to say the least. 

Carman Pirie: Why don’t you start by introducing our audience a little bit more to that industry, ’cause I’m sure you all make something more than just roller coasters, so talk to us about a little bit. Tell us about Chance. 

Jay Aguilar: Absolutely. First, I would like to say that Chance is a company. Next year actually is gonna be our 65th anniversary, right? We have been part of what is called the amusement industry. The origin of the company goes all the way back to 1961, with a very surprising product, perhaps for you guys.

The company start with a replica of the CP Huntington train. You may recall that back in the 18 hundreds, late 18 hundreds. CP Huntington was a popular engine number two, which is the one that made them popular, and is still actually in Sacramento, California, inside a museum. So the owner created the company, doing a replica of the CP Huntington train, which is what is called a miniature train. If you have been to a zoo or an amusement park, you might have your kids or your grandkids actually getting on that mini train. Over time, the company acquired another company with the name Herschel. Herschel used to be the company doing carousels back in the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds.

And now we have been doing carousels for a very long period of time. Iconic pieces that we have done: If you go to Universal in Orlando, Universal Beijing, or Universal in Singapore. We actually made those carousels. Another product that we do is people movers. If you have been to one of the Disney Islands, if you go to Castaway, you can take a cruise somewhere in Florida, and they take you to the island. And for moving the people from the cruise ship to the island and back to the ship, they usually use our products. That’s another product we do. And then we also do rollercoasters. If you have been to the American Dream outside of New York City. That mall has a family coaster for us. Go to Kentucky Kingdom, they have one of the three coasters from Chance, and the last product that we started doing was observation wheels, like the one that you see in Niagara Falls, or perhaps in Seattle. We have done seven observation wheels in this part of the world, and obviously, dealing with different clients/customers is quite interesting.

Different demographics, different behaviours when it comes to marketing. So that’s pretty much what we do. We do pretty much everything for any size in the industry. 

Carman Pirie: What a fun, fun space, Jay. And how did you end up there? How long have you been with Chance? 

Jay Aguilar: I’ve been with the company for about eight years.

Carman Pirie: Oh, wow. 

Jay Aguilar: Yes. 

Carman Pirie: Very cool. And, were you always on the marketing side of it? Or did you work elsewhere within the company?

Jay Aguilar: Actually, when I joined the company, I joined as the VP of Sales and Marketing. So with Chance, I’ve been part of the marketing team. My previous experience was also involved with the marketing side.

Carman Pirie: Oh, very cool. How do you, on the one end, it feels to me that this must be a very tight niche category to work in. My guess is that if you own an amusement park of a significant size, and you probably know other people who own them as well or who are responsible for managing them, et cetera, there are probably trade shows or conferences or something. But then, when you mentioned the roller coaster inside a mall and whatever, it is a more diverse category than maybe we immediately think of when we just think of Disney World. How do you go about marketing in this space? How do you think about it?

Jay Aguilar: Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that question, first of all, because it is a very unique, let’s say, marketing model. We do the traditional marketing because at the end of the day, the buyer is, we are talking B2B, right? Are the owners of those sites or amusement parks that we do the marketing with the traditional channels, right?

Magazine publications, trade shows and things like that. However, the purchasing decision is also considering, taking into consideration the final user slash the rider, and that’s when we gotta go through the, I’m gonna open parenthesis and say the latest and greatest channels, including TikTok, Instagram, all the social media channels, so that when the user is excited about getting on a rollercoaster, a carousel or a train. We do those videos through social media, and traditionally, the buyers from amusement parks or zoos they are paying attention to what the final riders are posting. Who did that? What did that cost? Who did that train? And at that point is when the marketing that we are doing for the individual has some weight on the buyer who is doing the spending. Perhaps doesn’t pay attention to the B2B marketing, but it pays a lot of attention to the marketing that we are doing through the B2C.

Jeff White: How do you leverage that bottom-up word of mouth, and amplify it so that it is, do you need to do anything to ensure that it is seen by your eventual buyer of a ride or a train? 

Carman Pirie: That it’s somehow claimed. Is that the question, Jeff? So there’s buzz about this ride, but maybe people may not know that it’s built by Chance.

Jeff White: Yeah. Yeah. I guess like how do you amplify that and own it a little bit when it isn’t, you’re not creating it or even encouraging it? 

Jay Aguilar: Absolutely. We have been able to actually identify some of… I’m gonna say, I’m not gonna label them as influencers because they are not. They just happen to be people who have a lot of people who follow them, and they know that whatever they post is good content, and they are part of those groups, right? So once again, they are not influencers; they just happen to be part of those groups. So we have already identified those individuals, and a lot of people follow them.

Then, when we see something through our feed or they tag us, we kind of tag along. And in that way, the people watching that little video, that little mention of Chance, we make sure that it’s actually posted through our social channels. And at that point, we use it that way. 

Carman Pirie: And I would suppose that there’s something that could be monitored via social media monitoring somewhat easily, in that people would be, if they’re posting a video about having an amazing time on this ride, they’re going to say the name of the ride.

I’m curious. If most people in the category, most of your competitors are in the business of making fun rides too, right? Nobody goes to market saying, We make the boring ones. 

Jeff White: So my wife would like that theme park. She doesn’t like any ride that is experiential.

Carman Pirie: So, how do you, I guess, how do you differentiate or how do you think about differentiating or positioning yourself versus a competitor in that moment? 

Jay Aguilar: No, absolutely. And you know what, something that I have to mention, I must mention this, is that people before me actually created the brand that we have today, created that legacy.

So to give a little bit of background, when I joined the company, the name of the company as it is today, Chance, has been so long a part of this industry that everybody in the industry knows very well who Chance is, what we do and the level of quality that we deliver to the buyer. So I’m gonna say in general, people are fully aware of the quality, and that makes us a little bit ahead of the rest of the players, who, by the way, have been part of the industry for less time. That is something that I’m gonna say the name brings a lot of weight, and we actually use that as part of the question, definitely. 

Carman Pirie: Jay, I really appreciate you bringing that up because, there are an awful lot of manufacturing marketers that find themselves, I think, in a similar space where they’re going to work for a brand that’s a hundred plus years old, that’s been the leader in the category, in some cases, invented the category. And, it could be one of those questions that they had. What do I do now? And so I love that maybe one of the answers to that is to harness the word of mouth and the conversation that’s happening in your industry about what it is you sell. And the act of harnessing that and claiming it can drive further demand.

Jay Aguilar: Yes. And one example of that, I’m not sure, when you were kids, you went to a carnival, to your local place where you live. One of the iconic pieces that we have built over the years of the company is called The Zipper. The Zipper is iconic. Just two weeks ago, one of the team members that we have as part of the marketing team came to me and said, Jay, you won’t believe this. I just identified one TikTok. It has 55 million views. And I said, you gotta show it. You gotta show that to me, that was two days after he saw it. At the time, he showed it to me. It had 85 million views, and nowhere do you see the name of Chance. But traditionally, people make comments, Oh, I love that Chance ride.

So, without us mentioning anything. We were like, wow. It really blew my mind.

Jeff White: That level of brand awareness and legacy. It’s a bit of a gift, honestly and a responsibility. 

Jay Aguilar: You are absolutely right. I thank you for bringing that up, that, that word, because once again, somebody before me built that brand, but it comes with a lot of responsibility. We gotta make sure that now, whatever we do, you gotta follow. Let’s say that legacy. Even when we come up with new ideas, let’s make sure that we actually keep the legacy… so that the people like what the heck is going on with this company. No, we try to keep the legacy by just implementing new tools. Definitely. 

Carman Pirie: This is a, not to be a downer on the conversation here, Jay. I’m just trying to, I guess, in a former life, I’ve done crisis management work in the oil and gas space, et cetera. Is that something that factors into your marketing and communications planning? Because the rides that you’re making do have a, I know that you obviously would work to make them incredibly safe, but. Things do happen. How strong is that part of your kind of thinking? Just when we’re talking about the responsibility to protect the brand? Yes. That came immediately to mind.

Jay Aguilar: Thank you so much for also bringing that topic because in what we do, you have human beings getting on your attraction, right? So that plays a key role. When we do the marketing, when we talk about X or Y product, or even when we do a press release for a new train, a new electric tram or whatever, we make sure that actually our general counsel is going through the wording or the text that we are gonna be using. Because of what you just mentioned, once you have human beings getting on your attraction, that brings a lot of responsibility. Also liability. So that plays also a role when we do the marketing in the form of, in the form of true traditional marketing ads as well as social media and things like that. Absolutely. You are right. It plays a role. 

Jeff White: When you were providing some examples of some of the rides and attractions that Chance has manufactured over the years. It struck me, and I don’t think that was an exhaustive list by any stretch, but it also struck me that these are massive projects. I don’t know the scale of the invoice or something like that, but I assume it’s pretty large. How does the size of the project impact the length of time that you are doing marketing, and how involved is the owner and the others in your customer organization in that process, and how long does it take?

Jay Aguilar: Alright, so thank you so much for that. Marketing-wise, it’s something, obviously, like any other company, we never stop doing marketing. And traditionally, we are just creating new content, new graphics. Every time we go to a different show, we attend multiple shows over the year that we have been attending for decades. And every year we go, we try to do different graphics, different products and things like that. Now. I try to give you an answer in the way I recall the question. How much or how is the ownership involved when we do things like that? I’m not sure if I’ll walk you guys through what has happened in the last few years with the company. We used to be a family-owned business. We are no longer a family-owned business. Now we are part of a private equity group. So when the family was involved, the family was deeply involved with everything we were doing regarding marketing, including trade shows. Now that we are a part of a private equity group, they are involved not as much as the family used to be. Let’s say that we have a little bit more freedom as long as we keep perfectly defined what the rules are, the legacy, the brand, and things like that.  So I’ll mention the second portion that you said some of them are massive projects, right? Yes, you are absolutely right. Some of them take up to, just for the manufacturing of that equipment. Three years. Just for the manufacturing. Specifically talking about what we call in the industry, the big boys, the Big U, and the big D. I’m sure you know who I’m talking about. From the moment we start talking about a new project to the moment we land a contract, it takes us perhaps two years for the sales cycle.

From the moment we have that contract and the moment they, the installation is happening up to three years. And during that time, let’s say we do a different kind of marketing with those team members because, although they already bought an attraction from Chance. Most likely, big organizations have people moving through different departments. So we do different marketing, most of the marketing at that point. It happens face-to-face through different interactions, reflected in the quality of interactions. Through the project management team, we make sure that the project management team is doing a good job because, at the end of the day, based on that performance, that is gonna bring more contracts through the same people, different departments, and different marketing. 

Carman Pirie: It’s interesting that there’s some private equity consolidation in the space, or at least you’re now owned by private equity. Is that, help me understand the growth of the amusement stakes more broadly and globally? How are you thinking about growth, or what are you seeing in the category more? Is there a lot of new stuff being built, or is it a category, an industry that’s maturing a little bit? 

Jay Aguilar: No, I’m gonna say that the continental US. Somebody could argue that it’s already saturated, right? But at the same time, you have seen perhaps a few new ones here and there that some brands are opening new amusement parks here in the continental us. So some people argue. This is already saturated, and some people are; it is not because we are opening more. And to give you an example of that, universal, for instance, not sure if you have heard that they are opening a smaller amusement park in Las Vegas.

Oh, that’s very cool. They’re opening one in Texas. So, know the size of what we know in Florida, just smaller. And this is a result of, believe it or not, it’s a result of the pandemic. People are spending more money locally. So you have to give the people what they are willing to do. So this is when it comes to the continental us. Now, if we think in terms of the global environment or the whole world, we have some specific places where they do have what we call in the industry mega projects, and perhaps the top of them is Saudi Arabia, right? They know that the oil is not gonna be there forever. So the kingdom is thinking, you know what? We have to become a tourist destination for the entire world. So they are having massive mega projects, building amusement parks all over the country, so that market, the Middle East, is having significant, massive, large projects. And every time I go there for let’s say a meeting of the whole industry, people from all over the planet, they are spending a massive amount of money. And obviously, everyone wants to have a little piece of that pipe, right? So, giving your answer to your question, I do believe it’s a mix. It’s a mix of saturated versus completely green fields for the X or Y area of the world. 

Carman Pirie: I find that fascinating, how similar it is to so many other manufacturing enterprises that you know, would be facing.

Yes, they’re maybe chasing after a couple of big mega projects that they’re gonna play a part in, but they’re also a good chunk of their growth is coming from, maybe a bit more mature market that has just seen some evolution in how it’s growing because of the pandemic. What you described, if we take rollercoasters out of the category, could have been an awful lot of other manufacturers. And I think the hope was listening in addition to just being, I think, a bit mesmerized by the notion of an amusement category broadly. I hope they take some tips from that. I don’t know. I find that interesting. 

Jeff White: It is. Jay, one of the things that I find interesting is we were talking about the B2B2C and that customer and kind of the non-influencer, but people who are posting about this sort of thing.

I know that there is a category of super users within amusement parks who would know the manufacturers of the rides and probably read about the history of these companies and know what makes a Chance rollercoaster, one of yours versus one of your competitors or something like that. How much are you able to leverage that? That kind of community to get in there and just be part of that. Are there any people, like on your team, who are getting involved in those groups of people who really follow amusement rides, roller coasters and things like that?

Jay Aguilar: Yes, we have a couple of, thank you for the question. A couple of team members, one of whom is actually surprisingly not part of the marketing team. He’s part of the technical team. He’s part of the mechanical engineering team. He’s perhaps the person that I know within the industry with the most knowledge of the whole industry; he gets on a ride and he tells you. Pretty much all the specifics of either a train, people mover, rollercoaster, wheel, he tells you everything from and perhaps doesn’t have the specific year when that ride was manufactured. It comes with a very close range. “This wheel is based on this structure, this specific detail on this was built between 1978 and 1992 because…

So yes, we have a couple of team members who they know and they are part of the industry nerds.

Jeff White: Really popular on Reddit, I’m sure. 

Jay Aguilar: And having someone part of those groups, it helps a lot. Definitely and once again, even the new rider, even the new rider at some point, their parents, they enjoyed a ride on a CP Huntington train from Chance or perhaps a carousel. And somehow, they relate the brand to these new industry nerds. So we try to leverage that. Yeah. 

Carman Pirie: I wonder, either a marketing approach or a reaction to something you’ve done. It’s been the most surprising because I feel like in some ways, you’ve been the, you’re the steward of a very storied brand in the amusement category.

And that leadership in the category is, while it’s a weight that you have to carry, it also comes with a lot of benefits. Has there been anything you can recall off the top of your head that has been… that just the market reacted in a surprising way, or something didn’t quite go as you planned? Just curious. 

Jay Aguilar: Yeah, definitely. I’m gonna say one of the products that we currently do is the electric CP Huntington train. Primarily, we deal with two different segments for that product. Amusement parks, and I’m talking about the big amusement parks, Six Flags, Universal, those are the big boys.

And then we also work with zoos, aquariums, and municipalities. If we think in terms of how they see the energy. I do see that people who are working for zoos and aquariums see clearly the benefit of having an electric train, right? Versus the traditional amusement park, where they are still big fans of fossil fuel oil, right?

Carman Pirie: Cause it has a nostalgic look, like the train looks more classic?

Jay Aguilar: Some days, I still ask myself what exactly they see with fossil fuel. The electric doesn’t provide for them. And the only silly comment that I’m gonna make. Somebody said the smell, like, no, you cannot tell me that the smell makes the experience different. And they said, No, it’s the smell that makes that experience real. Oh, okay. So when we did the original marketing campaign for the electric train. We got a big surprise on one side. ‘Cause on one side, they were asking for it, while on the other side, they were like You guys are moving to electric.

So it shocked us that half of the audience didn’t welcome, let’s say, the introduction of a new product. That has been a little bit more challenging with that part of the group. To convince them about the product as it is. And we try now to identify what experience they were missing if they were switching to X or Y.

Right? And now we believe we have an argument to actually say, Hey, this is what you still get. There are gonna be elements that we won’t be able to replicate, such as the smell of the engine running.

Jeff White: I have to think that there’s an opportunity here to create something that makes the noise of, and the exhaust smell of, an old train that you can just install and make it look like it’s there. And this is a freebie. Jay, you can take this to the bank. I think that’s gonna be big. It’s like people putting motor sounds on Teslas. 

Jay Aguilar: I tell you this, we did that. They do have an audio file playing. When they touch the throttle, it starts behaving like a real train. The whistle is there, but actually, when you press the button, it plays the file, like the regular whistle is there.

The only one that… How do you replicate the smell of diesel? At that point, you are actually crossing the line back to where you were. 

Carman Pirie: I’m thinking when Jeff said that earlier, I’m like, my goodness, whatever you create that will have the simulated smell of diesel is surely going to be worse for the environment. Yeah, that’s fascinating. Jay, look, I really appreciate this glimpse into this very unique industry. It’s been a real pleasure to chat with you on today’s show. Thank you for joining us. 

Jay Aguilar: Thank you so much for having me, guys. 

Jeff White: It was great to have you on the show.