Madame Tussauds
Challenge:
Madame Tussauds (Merlin Entertainments Group) are a global attraction with a wealth of brand heritage. The brand identity was different in each country and each individual website offered up a different experience and weren’t frequently updated. The sites did not sell the attraction as an unmissable day out, nor did they drive ticket sales and cross sell opportunities.
The brief was to deliver a new Global Digital Strategy for Madame Tussauds that would:
- Create a consistent global online identity and personality for Madame Tussauds
- Increase acquisition, conversion and retention of consumers
- Increase online ticket sales
- Increase basket values through up-selling and cross-selling with other Merlin Entertainment attractions
- Generate an online community and encourage the use of Social Media
- Integrate with existing 3rd party ticketing solutions (IBM WebSphere)
- Provide a global template for all Madame Tussauds sites with independent localised control of content
- Bring Madame Tussauds to life
Solution:
User Review and evaluation
We ran workshops with key stakeholders in each different geographic market to understand their specific digital objectives. Based upon the outputs from the workshops we produced a feature set for the digital solution that would assist in meeting the brief.
IA and wireframing
We worked on providing a single digital identity for all of the attractions and one that would be instantly recognisable. Working with the key brand characteristics the output reflected the Madame Tussauds brand attributes of being interactive, show biz and a great day out for all the family. We gave virtual visitors a dynamic online experience that reflected the real-world visit to the attraction, combining HTML and Flash to deliver high impact visuals and interactivity.
*Website and CMS design & build *
We designed and built 9 sites in 8 different languages which are controlled by individual marketing divisions via a single Content Management System that is fully saleable.
*Digital Asset Management system *
We devised and introduced a Digital Asset Management system that all global attractions can access; reducing internal costs and rework, whilst promoting the sharing of assets.
Social and UGC integration
We also incorporated elements designed to create an online community: embedding YouTube Videos, running polls to encourage opinions and participation, enabling Flickr tags to import user generated images alongside relevant wax models.
Results:
- One global digital identity
- Web revenue up 75% year-on-year
- Online sales yield up 17% year-on-year
- Website visits up 61% - currently over 1million unique visitors a month to the Madame Tussaud’s global sites
- Internal stakeholders complete backing on the strategy and the results
Please visit www.madametussauds.com to view the completed work.
