Content teams in visitor attractions are being asked to do more than ever

A single campaign now needs to work across multiple platforms, each with their own format, behaviours and expectations. At the same time, many attraction marketing teams are small, juggling brand, social, content, CRM, PR, partnerships and sales support all at once.

That was the challenge explored by Danielle Nicholls, Senior Content Manager at Merlin Entertainments, in her National Attractions Marketing Conference session, where she shared a practical framework for getting more value from content without simply demanding more ideas, more shoots and more budget. The central message…the answer is not always to create more. It is to make one strong idea work harder.

The problem: too much content, not enough resource

One of the biggest pressures facing attractions is the expectation to be everywhere. Marketing teams need campaign assets, social content, web updates, email creative, video, reels, stories, paid ads, press imagery, behind-the-scenes material and reactive content. But each platform needs something slightly different. This creates a familiar problem: everything feels urgent, but not everything deserves the same focus. Attractions therefore need to think more deliberately about the relationship between “hero” and “halo” content.

Hero content is the big idea – the campaign centrepiece, the main film, the brand platform, the launch moment or the creative concept everything else comes from. Halo content is what scales that idea. It is the set of supporting assets, cutdowns, platform-native edits, behind-the-scenes clips, creator moments, UGC, trailers, social-first posts, PR angles and paid media variations that help the campaign reach more people, more often, in more relevant ways.

A strong hero idea should naturally create halo opportunities

A strong hero idea should be clear enough to generate multiple halo opportunities. If it doesn’t, the problem may not be distribution. It may be the idea itself.

A good hero concept gives the team something to build from. It creates language, characters, moments, stories, reactions and formats that can be adapted across channels. It gives everyone a shared creative direction, rather than forcing the team to invent fresh ideas for every post, platform and asset. This matters because halo content is not just “cutting bits off” the main film, it’s about planning the full content ecosystem from the start.

That means asking questions such as:

  • What are the social-first moments?
  • What can be captured behind the scenes?
  • Which creators, staff members or guests can bring the idea to life?
  • What will work as a teaser?
  • What will work as a reaction clip?
  • What will work for press, CRM, web, paid media and short-form video?
  • Which assets need to be native to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or another platform?

The more of this that is planned before the shoot, the more efficient the campaign becomes.

Case study one: Alton Towers and Dare or Scare

One of the clearest examples came from Alton Towers’ Dare or Scare content for Scarefest.

The hero content was a YouTube mini-series built around creators and well-known personalities taking on challenges inside Alton Towers’ scare attractions. The team worked with six people, including TikTok creators and recognisable entertainment talent, and created three long-form episodes of around 10 to 15 minutes each. That could have been the end of the campaign: three strong YouTube videos promoting Scarefest. Instead, the team planned the halo content around the hero idea creating short trailers to tease each episode, pulling out the strongest reactions from the scare mazes and using creator-led moments that already had built-in audience recognition. In one example, a TikTok creator was asked to perform one of her known formats while going through the scare experience. That small planned moment became a highly successful TikTok clip because it was native to the platform and familiar to her audience.

Case study two: The London Eye at 25

The second example came from the London Eye’s 25th anniversary activity.

The hero asset was a longer-form brand film celebrating 25 years of the London Eye bringing together interviews, archive footage and the cultural significance of one of London’s most recognisable landmarks.

A campaign like this requires significant effort. But the value came from making sure the film was not treated as a single finished asset. Instead, it became the centre of a wider content ecosystem. The team captured behind-the-scenes footage during the shoot showing the importance of having someone from the social team present whenever possible, even if the main shoot is for brand, TV, PR or another purpose. A person with an iPhone, thinking like a social producer, can capture moments that would otherwise be missed. Those moments can become some of the most useful halo content.

The campaign also included social content around birthday celebrations, guest stories and a “my London Eye” idea that encouraged people to share their own connection to the attraction. This created opportunities for user-generated content, which added authenticity and helped the campaign feel more personal. The out-of-home activity also drew from the same anniversary platform, using iconic images and moments associated with the London Eye, from fireworks to views across London. The result was a campaign where the hero film carried the main message, but the halo content extended the story across multiple touchpoints.

Case study three: LEGOLAND and a global creative platform

The third example focused on LEGOLAND.

Here, the hero content was an emotion-led TV advert that did more than promote an attraction. It created a flexible brand platform. The advert used the idea of “In my LEGOLAND”, allowing children to describe the world they imagine and experience. That language gave local teams and global teams a creative toolkit they could adapt across different markets and channels.

This is where hero content becomes especially powerful. It is not just one advert. It becomes a creative engine. The idea can support social content, staff and character-led content, local market adaptations, attraction-specific messaging and campaign extensions. It gives teams a consistent platform, while still allowing flexibility.

For attractions with multiple sites, seasonal events or different audience segments, this kind of approach is especially useful. The core idea remains consistent, but the halo content can flex around location, audience, channel and objective.

Halo content should scale the hero, not sit separately from it

The three case studies all showed how halo content exists to scale the hero. It shouldn’t feel disconnected from the main campaign, be created only after the hero asset is finished and shouldn’t repeat the same message in slightly different sizes.

Good halo content continues the work of the hero campaign. It increases reach, frequency and relevance and gives audiences more ways into the idea, in turn making the campaign feel alive across different platforms.

That means each halo asset needs a job. Some content might entertain, explain, reassure, drive bookings, build anticipation, or help people understand what the experience actually feels like. This is particularly important for visitor attractions because people are not only buying a ticket. They are making a decision about time, money, travel, family expectations and whether the experience will be worth it.

Content has to do more than show that the attraction exists. It has to help people imagine themselves there.

Platform-native content matters

Halo content needs to be native to the platform. A TikTok trend should live on TikTok if that is where it makes sense. A YouTube trailer may need a different structure. Instagram may need a different visual rhythm. Press may need stills and clear story angles. Paid social may need sharper hooks and more direct messaging. This doesn’t mean creating a completely new idea for every channel. It means adapting the same idea intelligently.

The hero gives the campaign consistency. The halo gives it flexibility. That distinction is important. Repurposing content badly can make a campaign feel repetitive. Repurposing it well makes it feel bigger, more useful and more relevant. Halo content works best when it feels additive, not repetitive.

Capture more while you are already there

For smaller attraction teams, one of the most useful pieces of advice was also one of the simplest: capture more while you’re already on the shoot.

If a team is already filming a hero asset, launching a product, hosting talent, running an event or creating a campaign moment, there is usually far more content available than the final polished asset will show. This does not necessarily require another production budget. It requires planning, awareness and someone thinking about the wider ecosystem while the main asset is being created.

For attractions under pressure to produce more, this is where the hero-to-halo approach becomes especially valuable by helping teams to make better use of the moments they already have.

The real takeaway: more exposure to the right idea

Success does not always come from having more ideas. Sometimes it comes from giving the right idea more exposure.

Rather than trying to fill every content calendar with something completely new, attractions should focus on building stronger campaign ecosystems:

  • Start with one clear hero concept
  • Plan the halo content at the same time
  • Capture assets with different channels in mind
  • Make each format native to the platform
  • Use creators, staff, guests and behind-the-scenes moments to add authenticity
  • Then let the same idea work harder across the full campaign.

For visitor attractions, this is a practical way to deal with the reality of modern content demands.

The strongest campaigns are not necessarily the ones with the biggest production budgets or the most individual assets. They are the ones with a clear idea at the centre, a plan for how that idea will travel, and enough flexibility to make it relevant wherever audiences encounter it. In a sector where teams are often short on time, resource and budget, that is a powerful shift.

To watch Danielle’s presentation in full get your On Demand Tickets from Zoom