I posted this on Reddit, but I wanted to put it a few other places as well.
Here's my mostly calm view on the situation, and why it was handled terribly.
Take personal feelings and disappointment out of this.
The "soul counter" ended today, and many of us expected something pretty good. Maybe not a full reveal, but something big since it's been going on for a month.
What we actually received was a social media picture frame and a link to a sweepstakes we can enter daily (until September 1st). We'll focus on the sweepstakes, wherein you can win a trip for two to Horror Nights this year. Fun, right?
Here's why it's an absolute garbage fire of an idea:
The overall point of advertising and marketing is to create excitement and demand with the end point being a purchase.
So, what does a sweepstakes do to promote sales? Absolutely. Nothing.
It actually discourages people from purchasing tickets and/or booking a trip.
They drive you to the site (potentially daily). You give them your information (which they probably already have from the Soul Collectors)....and then you wait and hope to win a trip.
Not purchase tickets, add-ons, book a flight, hotel, etc. Because that will all be provided if you win.
So what happens? Remember, we're talking about the general public here. Not the HHN faithful that have had their trip planned for months. Because that's who we can really influence with ads.
Well...they wait until September 1st. Possibly forget completely about entering to win. Then they don't go on the trip they never planned.
Now. Let's assume that maybe someone is still interested in going after almost a month (and then not winning).
They assume since they didn't hear anything, they didn't win. But, that event sounded pretty cool. Let's price out a quick trip...
Tickets are decently priced. Ok. How much for a room?
Oh. Most of Universals on-site hotels are already booked up. Hmmm...guess I'll stay off-site.
That's OK though. How much is a flight? Oh snap! those are some expensive tickets (because it's only two weeks from the start of the event at this point).
Hmmm...maybe we won't go this year, but we'll remember to plan something for next year.
Next year comes...maybe they forget, maybe they don't. But, the end result is no sales for HHN27.
Sorry for the long example, but I wanted to submit an objective review rather than just saying they did a crap job this year.