Chessington World Of Adventures: Sorry Surrey

The Brief:

The launch of Chessington World of Adventures’ new World of Jumanji theme park in May was a big moment – the world’s first Jumanji themed land; the single largest investment in Chessington’s history; the first new rollercoaster in twenty years, and the park’s first 360° inversion rollercoaster, the Mandrill Mayhem.

Months before the new World of Jumani land would open, and three quarters of the way through our nine-month launch plan, we were faced with a challenge:

Having already showcased new CGI mockups of the new World Jumani land, and showcased the Hollywood power of Merlin Entertainments’ partnership with Sony Pictures … how could we bring to life what was, at the time, still a building site?

Strategy and Implementation:

The headline new Mandrill Mayhem rollercoaster ticks all of these boxes – literally scaling new heights: rising 20 meters, before twisting riders upside down, and accelerating up to 45mph. We knew kids would love it: they’d have their wildest theme park adventure yet.

But while Chessington World of Adventures hosts a lot of vocal animals, from roaring lions to squawking hornbills, we were worried that the 840 excited children riding this death-defying rollercoaster every might be the noisiest of them all – experiencing twists and turns that made people scream louder than they have ever screamed before.

So it was only fair that we forewarned the neighbours – we’re Sorry Surrey!

Open letters in local and regional newspapers, including Metro and the Surrey Advertiser, apologised to local residents for the noise of the new attraction, and ‘in case of emergency, break glass' boxes provided industrial strength ear defenders around the county – as well as the chance to win tickets to these new rides, by scanning QR codes on the boxes.

Results:

The tongue-in-cheek approach of Sorry Surrey hit a chord, and our attention grabbing headline drew in our audience.

• The campaign was featured on multiple TV and radio news and breakfast segments — including Good Morning Britain and BBC local radio in Surrey and Sussex
• Top tier coverage included national and regional newspapers (such as The Mirror and Metro), and online articles reaching millions (through sites such as Female First and MSN).
• Google trend data showed searches for the new attraction tripled as our first coverage hit, with further peaks from our subsequent waves of coverage.
• And several of our ‘break glass’ boxes were indeed broken, as fans sought out the limited edition ear defenders inside.

The campaign was also one of the most successful print ads across the UK, this year.

Every month Kantar’s Creative Excellence practice and The Advertising Association test a selection of high-profile current ads with a panel of 150+ members of the public, using a range of in-depth survey techniques (including eye-tracking, EmotionAI-powered facial analysis, focus groups, and more), to identify the ads that stand out, capture attention, and drive action.

Our ‘Sorry Surrey’ open letter – printed in the Metro and several local Surrey papers – was hailed as ‘the most effective’ newspaper advert that month.

For its persuasive power, it was in the top 20% across Kantar’s entire five year benchmark of print ads. 25% of the public described the Sorry Surrey advert as “very interesting”, compared to an average of 14%.