Empower Adventures

Client: Empower Adventures
Industry: Destination Marketing/Hospitality

Challenge:

Empower Adventures, a pioneer in zip lines and adventure sports, wanted an outside perspective of their operations, specific market programs, brand positioning and emerging opportunities. Additionally, the company wanted to launch a new adventure park in Tampa Bay; their third location in the U.S.

Solutions:

Empower Adventures Tampa Bay (EATB) selected HCP as their marketing firm of record in 2016. HCP took over all branding, advertising, marketing and public relations for the brand’s Florida adventure experience. EATB partnered with the City of Oldsmar to open their third zip line and aerial park over the Mobbly Bayou Nature Preserve.

HCP created an intense promotional launch with a groundbreaking ceremony, soft-launch grand opening for VIPs and media and a three-month media blitz that garnered extensive press coverage, establishing the brand as highly reputable and fun outdoor adventure experience for everyone.

In order to better understand the companies two other locations in Middleburg, VA and Middletown, CT, HCP developed customized market studies including exploration of model adventure sports facilities across the country-both in the zip line category and others offering adventure sports with similar price/value programming.

Secret shopping of the existing and competitive locations provided insight into the sales process, adding perspective on the positioning of the product to the various target audiences. Comprehensive on-site interviews with users, supporters and staff offered a perspective only possible by those closest to the product.

In the markets with the most experience, field studies were initiated which included secondary data on surrounding demographics, quantitative analytics from the region, visitation to competitive sites and interviews with community and tourism leadership.

The studies were completed over a 90-day period and resulted in a detailed plan of action including both long-term strategic considerations as well as short-term actions to enhance current business. One absolute finding was the realization that “one-size” does not fit all locations and applications. Individual markets, geographic locations and the presence of competitive offerings strongly dictated the sizes utilize unique plans to address the intricacies of each respective local marketplace.

Empower Adventures Tampa Bay (EATB) opened to the public in May 2016.