Member Article

Manchester agency clinches theme park contract

Manchester advertising agency TBWA has won a contract with the theme park company, Merlin Entertainments, worth an annual £11.2m.

The deal covers Merlin’s theme parks including Alton Towers Resort, Thorpe Park, Chessington World of Adventures and Warwick Castle in the UK; the Heide Park Resort in Germany, and the Gardaland Resort in Italy.

TBWA\Manchester’s brief includes launch campaigns for new rides and attractions, as well as communications for the resort theme park portfolio.

Fergus McCallum, the chief executive of TBWA\Manchester, said: “Merlin is the UK and Europe’s leading visitor attraction operator.

“Delivering effective communications across such a highly diverse portfolio of market-leading resort theme park brands, each of which has its own very clear positioning and profile, is not only a hugely exciting and challenging prospect, but also a great creative opportunity for the agency.”

Merlin runs 99 attractions in 22 countries across four continents. It attracted more than 54 million visitors in the year to December 29 2012, generating total revenue of £1.07bn and underlying EBITDA of £346m.

TBWA Manchester recently unveiled its first campaign for Smyths, an account it won earlier this year.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Simon Malia .