Word: sixes
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...fortunes of Six Flags, the country's largest regional theme-park operator, have fallen more steeply than its roller coasters. It's not that the company's 20 parks across North America are all that bad. The management team has worked hard to give the facilities a makeover and offer more family-friendly options. Attendance and revenues actually rose in 2008, despite the onset of the recession and high gas prices last summer. But the company's crippling $2.4 billion debt load led to a $135 million loss last year. Six Flags was $141 million...
This could be a make-or-break summer for Six Flags. And in the current economic environment, families will likely sacrifice thrill-ride screams for savings. So why, in the face of such serious challenges, would Six Flags respond by rolling out an ad campaign featuring a widely mocked character that the company's own chairman once said is "misguided" and "weakens the brand"? Why, just when the stakes are at an all-time high, is a bankrupt company putting that creepy dancing old guy back on our TVs? (See the best and worst Super Bowl commercials...
...name is Mr. Six - clever, right? - and his troll-like antics may prevent you from ever setting foot in a Six Flags park, no matter how exciting that Batman ride is. He first popped up in Six Flag ads in 2004, a geriatric sideshow obviously played by a younger actor. Mr. Six dementedly shimmied to the equally annoying late-'90s dance song "We Like to Party" while in the confines of a Six Flag facility. Dressed in a floppy tuxedo and wearing black-rimmed glasses larger than most skyscraper windows, Mr. Six has a wrinkled face, a victim of makeup...
...original Mr. Six ads ran from 2004 to 2005. But when Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, Six Flags' largest shareholder, won his bid to take control of the company in late 2005, he ripped the campaign. His management team soon killed the ads. "Mr. Six went on sabbatical," says Angie Vieira Barocas, senior VP of marketing and entertainment at Six Flags. "People associated him with Six Flags, but he wasn't necessarily converting people's intention to visit our parks into actual visitation." (See pictures of theme parks in China...
...revive him? "We had a lot of internal conversations about Mr. Six, and we were like, Look, he's beloved by our guests," says Vieira Barocas. "There are definitely people who are not fans of him. But he has more fans than not. And at a time when there's all sorts of uncertainty, people like the familiar and the known...