Our approach for King Kong was not to market it as simply a ride, but rather to treat it as an immersive, intense, real world experience. We wanted people to feel as if a destructive and intimidating King Kong had entered their world and was more real than ever. In order to do this, we created a series of stunts at iconic Los Angeles landmarks. At Santa Monica Beach we hired sand sculptors to show up at midnight and create giant footprints along the beach. The buzz continued as footprints were next discovered at dodger stadium. The prints trampled the field and left the outfield in ruins. In addition, tossed smoking vehicles were discovered around Hollywood as the impact was felt around the city.

We kicked off the Kong Campaign in a big way, with non-traditional ambient stunts at Dodgers Stadium and Santa Monica beach. This garnered media attention from news stations, extending the campaign's reach in free media impressions to a broad audience. By toying with the viewers reality we started asking questions that were finally answered a few weeks later by the release of the :60 Television Spot. Only in the last few frames do we catch a glimpse of the thing causing all this chaos, King Kong. We followed up with a series of Out of Home billboards designed to bring home the original ideas of questioned reality set forth in the Ambient Stunts.

We reached 5 million guests in 2010, marking the single largest attendance since Jurassic Park (1996) and the fourth largest annual attendance in USH history. With the launch of KK 360 3-D, summer attendance increased by 27%, international attendance increased by 29%, and local guest visits increased by 46%. A USH in-park survey conducted at the end of June showed that 41% of USH guests were already aware of the new attraction prior to visit. Among guests aware, 31% cited TV as the largest source of awareness.

The beach stunt garnered national TV coverage by over 62 stations, extending the campaign’s reach in free media impressions to an even broader audience Non-traditional approach extended reach and, thus, awareness without spending a ton.