October 22, 1997
Media Contact: Dolores Davies, (619) 534-5994 or [email protected]
SEA WORLD WAS SAVVY CORPORATE ENVIRONMENTALIST LONG BEFORE GREENING OF CORPORATE AMERICA, SAYS UCSD SCHOLAR
Long before recycling and the greening of corporate America became politically correct, there was Sea World, the theme park where the wonders of nature are performed, marketed, and sold. With its trademark star Shamu the killer whale and its reproductions of pristine natural worlds, Sea World, throughout much of its 33-year history, has been a skillful manipulator of environmental messages and images of nature, successfully integrating advertising, entertainment, and education to create a unique brand of corporate environmentalism.
The Sea World experience and the theme park's corporate culture is the subject of Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience, (University of California Press) a new book by Susan Davis, a professor of communication at the University of California, San Diego. An authority on the tensions between public and commercial culture, especially in spatial forms such as theme parks, zoos, museums, and malls, Davis has spent more than seven years conducting fieldwork and research on Sea World's vast operations, examining the park as both a commercial product and a phenomenon typical of contemporary American culture. Along the way, she became fascinated with Sea World's carefully produced versions of nature, and how these powerful images were crafted as commercial entertainment to shape public understandings of the environment and environmental problems.
"Places like Sea World have played an important role in heralding the growing role of private corporations in producing public services for a profit, just as they have in promoting the private corporation as environmental activist and educational philanthropist," explained Davis. "Sea World is successful because it has occupied the entertainment space of nature so well."
In her book, Davis traces the evolution of the theme park in American culture, starting with the opening of Disneyland in 1955, to the emergence of the "big five" conglomerate corporations which now dominate the industry: Disney, Anheuser-Busch (Sea World's owner), Time-Warner, Paramount -Viacom, and Universal-MCA.
"As it has developed, the theme park is a virtual maze of advertising, public relations, and entertainment," according to Davis. "Whether Sea World, Disneyland, or Six Flags Over Texas, the theme park is the site of carefully controlled sales of goods and experiences, 'themed' to the corporate owners proprietary images."
Unlike the other major theme park owners, Sea World has no significant media holdings or outlets to help integrate its parks into a cross-promotional marketing and merchandising strategy. Lacking a Mickey Mouse or a Bugs Bunny, Sea World has relied heavily on Shamu - a licensed image, park logo, and corporate icon - and other images of nature and marine life to promote the park and its products.
"The lack of a direct film or television tie-in has encouraged Sea World to carefully cultivate nature as the theme park's central story," said Davis. "Although the park always includes human and land animal entertainment, ocean environments and marine animals are the central theme of Sea World, with the performing whales being the central attraction, what management calls its 'core product."
Although in researching her book Davis studied marketing and operational practices that are implemented at all the Sea World parks, she spent countless hours at the original San Diego Sea World. In her book she examines the history of the park as a San Diego institution and its pivotal role in the local and regional tourism market.
Since its opening in 1964, Sea World has played a critical role in San Diego's development as a major tourist destination. According to Davis, there has been a pattern of shared growth and interdependence between San Diego and Sea World, with the latter helping San Diego's image evolve from a sleepy Navy town to "America's Finest City.
"Climate, nature, and health are continuous themes in San Diego's century-long promotion of itself," according to Davis. "While the fabulous climate, the beach and the endless array of outdoor sports are important touristic images, Sea World and the Zoo help define the city as a nature-oriented, conservation-conscious outdoor place to be."
In fact, as San Diego has carved an outdoors and nature niche in the national tourism market, animals and animal performers have become very closely identified with the city. This is due in no small part to Sea World, which used images of whales and dolphins, often humanized, in its earliest promotions.
Davis' book contains numerous photographs, some of which are, in retrospect, rather humorous, showing Sea World's early promotional efforts to link itself with marine animals by attempting to humanize the mammals. A 1964 photograph shows a dolphin in a bikini lounging on a large pillow with a blond, bikini-clad beauty queen fanning the dolphin with a large palm frond. Gradually, depictions such as these as well as promotions like "Shamu Goes to College," and "Yankee Doodle Whale" were dropped because customers had begun to see these shows as humiliating to the animals.
The popular environmentalism of the '70s, along with a more sophisticated, educated audience, prompted Sea World to shed its animal show identity for a more nature- and science-oriented image.
"The transformation of Sea World's public image and physical environment was a response to a series of internal and external crises that began to unfold in the mid-1970's, placing pressure on the theme park to become more museum-like and scientific," said Davis. "The popular environmentalism of the '70s played a large role in forcing the new image."
As popular environmentalism has taken root in the American consciousness and environmentalist groups have succeeded in getting stricter laws on the books regarding endangered species and the sale and display of marine mammals, Sea World has been pressured to position itself not just as a nature-theme park, but as a research entity concerned with preserving marine species. According to Davis, the whale-breeding program, the Carlsbad fish hatchery, and other projects of Sea World's research institute, enable the park to portray itself as a responsible manager of the environment.
Sea World's success in selling nature has not gone unnoticed. According to Davis, many companies are anxious to get into the lucrative nature-theme park business, including Disney and Ogden Entertainment, which both have parks under construction.
"Nature on display is a long standing cultural tradition that's booming like never before," said Davis. "In fact it's entirely possible given how advanced and sophisticated the commercial production of nature experiences and commodities has become,that Sea World and nature-theme parks like it, could become a dominant way of experiencing nature."
Davis, a member of the UCSD Communication Department faculty since 1987, has written widely on the production of culture in public and private spaces, and has studied parades, festivals, ceremonies, riots, and demonstrations as forms of cultural communication. In addition to her book on the culture of Sea World, she is the author of Parades and Power: Street Theatre in 19th Century Philadelphia (University of California, 1988).
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