“When the sun is blazing and the summer gets hot, water country is a very cool spot, there’s no better place to feel or be young; Water Country, Water Country – Have some fun!  So sings the first stanza of a Portsmouth, NH water park concieved and written (15 years ago) by my partner Kevin Tracey.  One of the country’s largest water parks, Water country started with one slide and a dream – the ingredients of which was one part safety and nine parts fun!  The entire visual, culture and emotional (aka…the Brand) aspect of the company was decided upon by answering one question: is it fun?  If it was, it was in; if not, it was out.  Then about half a decade ago, the park was sold to a very large California company that knew little about New England, and even less about branding and advertising.   Their first brilliant move was to cut the rather large broadcast budget and change the creative from “Have some fun” ( jack Trout would be proud to know that in New England FUN was the word that Water Country owned outright ) To, “get set to get wet”  Attendance dropped by about 35 percent. 
The reason I got into the advertising business in the first place was because it was fun; the reason I might get out is because great Brands, built from the ground up, are often put into the hands of creative numbskulls that care more about their fake careers, then they do about shareholder equity. 
Two huge mistakes
The first mistake was changing a hugely successful positioning and the second was cutting the budget before anything else was even looked at.  Good luck replacing 35 percent in ticket sales with the savings of a couple of drive time spots.
Could you get Disney to give up being in the “magic” business or tell Volvo “hey dude, this safety gig, that built one of the world’s greatest car companies, is old and needs a new, hip edge”.  If only an ax could hit the speaker’s of such dribble in the head just before this kind of advice was spoken, we could all go back to doing great ads!  Unfortunately, Ed Ames is dead, so it’s now up to you.
Not every company can use fun as the bases of their brand for sure.  Every brand can, however, have fun arriving at a consensus about their brand.  We have published countless papers and given many speeches’s based on matching the priorities of the market with the promise of the brand.  A promise is nothing without the “trust” that you will deliver without changing anything that you said.  So, if you’re smart you will promise something that you can actually deliver.  And have fun doing it.  If you don’t think you need more fun, I say that you need a near death experience, that will get your priories in order. 

Haden Edwards

Senior Creative Officer
Tracey Edwards Company