Archive for September 23rd, 2010

With rather extraordinary fanfare, Disney Parks made its latest announcement an hour ago.  I spent a puzzling half-hour on facebook with 10,000 other viewers, watching the live feed.  I have to assume many more were logged in through the Disney Parks Blog site since that was completely unavailable.

It was fascinating to read the comments coming in as the presentation made its ponderous way forward.  Obviously a group of true believers, even the most diehard members of the audience became discouraged as the show rolled on.   By the end of the broadcast, the comments were almost 100% negative; surprised, dismayed, and negative.  It wasn’t so much the content; it was the failure to deliver on the heels of so much hoopla.

Supporting the research which indicates the importance of vacation memories, the new “Let the Memories Begin” campaign will give guests the chance to share their own photos and videos and see them projected on the façade of Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World Resort, or It’s a Small World at Disneyland Resort.  There was a rehash of old news about the World of Color, new Disney Cruise Line ships, park expansions, Aulani.  Very nice; very anticlimactic; very disappointing to the vast majority who very clearly were expecting something a great deal more dramatic.

Despite the public’s love affair with the notion of sharing the mundane details of daily life with the world, there is obviously a different set of standards when it comes to corporate pronouncements.  Still an evolving concept, social media outlets are being embraced by business with mixed results, and this appears to have been a misstep.  While it may be acceptable for Disney to publish tidbits and trivia on its blog and fan page, it seems that using them to whip people into a frenzy of anticipation about a “big” announcement which turns out to be small after all, is not.  There was a lot of speculation regarding this “exciting news;” pretty much all of it far exceeding the somewhat ho-hum rollout of the new marketing campaign.  Can’t help but feel that there’s a lesson here for us all – go big or go home.