Disney surprised me at the Media Relations Summit 2008. Duncan Wardle, VP of Global PR Disney Parks, talked openly about having some challenges launching social media-based programs inside the company. The legal department was mentioned several times with a knowing tone in his voice.
They have several social media-based programs going: Virtual Magic Kingdom (think Habbo Hotel meets NeoPets) Dream Jobs (would you like to be a Pirate at the park for a day? Who wouldn't?), a Mom's panel and others. He introduced each by commenting on how challenging it was to get these "uncontrollable" programs through legal.
But the insight came during his description of some of these programs and when he answered the question about where social media responsibility should reside in the marcom world within an organization like Disney.
More Complex Integration
Duncan described having all players of the marcom mix at the table - the brand managers, the advertising folks, the Public Relations team, the CRM folks, etc... That is how we are working more and more. Who "owns" social media or it's more mature outcome, word of mouth marketing, is a trick question. He described how they strike more complex deals now with entities like the big portals (e.g. Yahoo) which weave the communication goals and business objectives of all of the discip0lines to get the most out of the portal. So, it's not just an ad buy to drive traffic to an initiative, it's editorial integration, an even a bigger commitment on selling rooms via the travel channel within the portal, and so on.
Campaigns meant to generate customer or employee involvement and word of mouth work better when complemented and integrated with PR and advertising. They need to work together to get the best effect. And social media? Social media is a set of tools, techniques and methods used to reach a marketing or communications goal - usually in the form of word of mouth marketing. I added this last distinction. I think it was implicit in Duncan's talk.
John,
I worked for several years with Duncan and his teams at Disney Parks and Resorts and they do some amazing work. Duncan is the visionary force behind many of their new media campaign initiatives. Legal has always been a challenge because you can imagine some much Disney controlled messaging right from the start with Uncle Walt!
Posted by: Mike Spataro | April 09, 2008 at 06:48 PM
Mike - he really seemed like he had a great perspecttive between innovation and reality.
Posted by: John Bell | April 15, 2008 at 11:33 AM
i think the media is so good for disney. unsure what else is needed.
Posted by: disney store merchandise toys | March 26, 2009 at 03:44 PM