Welcome to another edition of Advertising Analysis.

For your consideration: Medieval Times Mother’s Day Special: Why Don’t They Just Do It Everywhere? Damn!

Radio ads have been playing all day encouraging all listeners to partake in the festivities lauded upon onlookers at . . .

. . . dinner and tournament.

The Medieval Times radio ads actually do inform you of a great promotion: One adult ticket will yield you a free one for your mom from 5/10 to 5/13.

That’s not a bad deal. Medieval Times is pretty damn popular with families. We’re all looking for places/things/events, etc. to share with our mothers during Mother’s Day. Taking you mom to Medieval Times at a discount can’t be beat.

Benefits of Medieval Times:

1. The food is good and mostly filling. Just make sure you’re prepared to eat with your hands, cause you’ll get no utensils.
2. The temperature of the place is well-balanced and comfortable. The stadium is has nice high ceilings and is really large for the amount of people they cram into the space.
3. The falcon show is really interesting. Most of us have seen a man on horseback. Most of us have seen (or participated) in simulated combat, so the hokey battle scenes really aren’t that big of a deal. BUT, the falconry is cool, because 1) Most will never see falconry anywhere, but Medieval Times, and 2) The falcon itself is small, yet really fast and really powerful. In fact, as the bird flys past your head it takes a full 2 seconds for the wind rush to whap you in the head as it whizzes by!

Disadvantages of Medieval Times:

1. Their marketing materials straight up lie to you about how early you need to come to the castle. They’ll tell you to show up a full 1 to 2 hours before you’re admitted into the arena. What do you do in the castle in the mean time? You get bombarded with peddlers trying to sell you CCC items (“CCC” means “Cheap, Chinese, Crap”) and booze. If you bring your kids with you, they’ll pester you to buy them one of everything in the staging area outside the damn arena. It’s a real tourist trap. Beware.
2. If you don’t take advantage of special promotions, ticket prices can be kind of costly for those who think simulated combat is really boring.

Finally, the biggest disadvantage to their promotions and to their radio ads is that, to the best of our knowledge, their Mother’s Day promotion is only valid in one of their locations!

Why the hell can’t they just say this in their radio ad? Why spend all that money advertising on the radio, and not specify that the offer is only valid at one out of over a dozen locations? Give us a break.

If you happen to hear the radio ad, and then make plans with your mother to show up at Medieval Times in Orlando, guess what . . . You’ll be paying full price. Beware. Just another reason to check online before you do anything or make any reservation plans.

Good luck out there.

Keywords: entertainment, advertising, money, promotions, radio, medieval, times, combat, hokey