2. Case Study
Adding wow to the guest experience at Sea Life
Global 2008 - 2010
The Situation
Sea Life is the world’s largest aquarium brand, with 35 attractions across the world. By 2008, however, it was
becoming out of touch with the needs of the audience and was starting to see a decline in visitor revenue. The
basic product had always been great, but the customer experience was too ‘dry’ and scientific. It had become a
race to the sharks at the end of the visit and consequently so much that is incredible about the marine world was
not being experienced.
The Task
My task as the Global Brand Manager for Sea Life was to grow the business, increase it’s appeal amongst families,
reduce the amount of promotional offers and improve spend per head.
Extensive market research identified that families want edutainment; the opportunity to learn something but have
fun at the same time. Sea Life needed to stop being scientists and start being explorers!
The Action
As the architect of the new brand identity, I led workshops to define the positioning, training programs to build
colleague engagement, a rebranding exercise to change the experience in the centres and updates to the customer
touch points that improve the experience.
The logo was modernised, the website overhauled, new more engaging information replaced the boring science
stuff, conservation programs took centre stage. All together, extra Wow! was added from the first point of contact
(whether that was web, leaflet or offer voucher) to the initial impression upon arrival (exterior, queuing and
welcome) and through the visit (exciting creatures, immersive displays, interesting facts and loads of interaction).
The Results
Sea Life had something meaningful to offer in the battle for share of the 21st century day out. Customer satisfaction
jumped 5 points so that now more than 95% of the guests rated their day as excellent or very good. Revenue in the stephen.brown@nxo.net
first year of the rebrand was up £4 million, with spend per head improved by 5%.
But don’t just take my word for it: 0870 754 7755
"Steve is one of the 'clearest thinking' most savvy brand gurus I've ever met...and I've met a lot of them. He has 0788 692 9714
that uncanny knack of being able to grasp the essence of any enterprise very quickly and provide clear simple
directions for making the most from it." nxo.net
Mark Oakley, Head of PR, Merlin Entertainments
Pole Position
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Now working with the nxo strategic marketing network, Steve can improve your customer experience too. LinkedIn