The Rise and Impact of Digital Marketing in the Amusement Park Industry

Digital Marketing has revolutionized the way industries conduct business and the Amusement Park Industry is no exception. To survive in the world of thrills, roller coasters, and attractions, continuous innovation and evolution is a necessity. Digital Marketing finds its inception and rise in the creation of the Internet, the Smartphone, and Tim Bernerstee’s 1994 World Wide Web project. Digital Marketing can be defined as determining and meeting the needs of customers through promotion and enticement of those customers through a host of electronic platforms (“The Evolution”, 2019). It is the nature of Digital Marketing to continuously change, shift, and advance, which is why the intersection of both the Amusement Park industry and the world of digital marketing is compelling. The purpose of this thesis is to understand the history of the amusement park industry in the United States, the rise and impact of Digital Marketing within the amusement park industry, and how both developments have shaped the way these park brands engage, communicate, and market to their consumers. This thesis explores how this development has affected consumer perceptions of the Disney park brand through research conducted on 365 ASU undergraduate W.P Carey business students. This research asks the question as to whether perceptions of an Amusement Park are impacted by the form of advertising to which individuals are exposed. Specifically, if there is a difference in individuals’ perceptions after exposure to a physical advertisement (billboard) compared to a digital advertisement (social media post). The results of the research showed that participants perceived and evaluated advertising in the form of social media more favorably compared to advertisements in a physical billboard form.