Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 The Disney marketing honchos. I'm sitting here with my fat butt on the sofa in SoFla watching some ABC (Day Break is an excellent replacement for Lost, btw) when I see a commercial for the holidays ... at DL? Well, there was the snowman in mouse ears dreaming of DL ... there was DL's Dumbo, DL's Main Street, DL's Mansion Holiday, DL's Christmas Fantasy Parade and finally Alec Baldwin (guess he's real hard up for cash!) does a voiceover talking about 'all the holiday magic in four parks' and they fade to an image of fireworks over Cindy's Castle with WDW below. Hmmm ... so I guess they don't expect the Boca Raton elite to travel to Anaheim after all. How stupid/cheap are these trained chimps that work for Rasulo and Co? Would it really have been that hard to send a crew out and get some film of the Ozzy Lightfest at the Studios, Holidays Around the Fireworks Fallout Lagoon at Epcot, or even Mickey's We'll Charge You $40 for What Used To Be Free Christmas Parties? C'mon, Mr. Iger ... you're better than this. Globalization doesn't work. Pull the damn plug on Rasulo, Weiss and their minions already and get some folks in there who have a clue.
Originally Posted By wahooskipper You missed DLs Splash Mountain. I told my wife it was shot in Disneyland and she asked me how I knew. Splash Mountain was the inline seating as opposed to the side to side seating in Florida. Spirit...are you in Boca? I'm in Weston.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost I don't see any big deal with that. Basically what they were showing were similar in many ways. Why spend money, that later translates into higher ticket prices, to show something that 90% of the public doesn't know a lick about or care. Yes, those of us that are mouse worshipers notice but to the rest of the world no one cares. Why waste corporate money on minor stuff. Put it in new attractions instead. Sadly, it will probably only go to executive bonuses but what the heck. One of their major jobs, besides entertaining us, is to show profit to the stockholders. Without them Disney Corp. does not exist. Do you call news agencies because they use file tapes instead of new pictures when the story is the same either way? It's just business and regardless of the fact that we refuse to acknowledge it as such, there it is. Plain and simple.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<You missed DLs Splash Mountain. I told my wife it was shot in Disneyland and she asked me how I knew. Splash Mountain was the inline seating as opposed to the side to side seating in Florida.>> Yep. I actually recall that now ... all the footage was clearly DL. I wonder how a campaign with the Osbourne Lights and MVMCP would have gone over in the SoCal market ... <<Spirit...are you in Boca? I'm in Weston.>> The Spirit has haunted both of those locales ... in the last 24 hours too ;-)
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<I don't see any big deal with that. Basically what they were showing were similar in many ways.>> But they weren't the same. They were advertising for a resort in Florida and talking about its four park offerings, while showing highlights from one park in California. Including things like Mansion Holiday, which when I last checked, didn't exist in Florida. Showing a parade that doesn't exist in Florida. Showing snow on Main Street, that you don't get in Florida. It could be called deceptive advertising. I just call it dumb, cheap and lazy. <<Why spend money, that later translates into higher ticket prices, to show something that 90% of the public doesn't know a lick about or care.>> Doing things right doesn't translate to higher ticket prices. <<Yes, those of us that are mouse worshipers notice but to the rest of the world no one cares. Why waste corporate money on minor stuff. Put it in new attractions instead.>> I don't worship a rodent, so speak for yourself please. And if it were truly a question of new attractions or truthful marketing, I might ... might ... agree with you. But it isn't. <<Sadly, it will probably only go to executive bonuses but what the heck.>> Bingo. <<One of their major jobs, besides entertaining us, is to show profit to the stockholders. Without them Disney Corp. does not exist.>> I want the TWDC to be profitable ... much more so than it is now. I have a considerable chunk of my portfolio invested in this company. But I don't see how cheap, lazy marketing equates to the performance of my stock. This is the same tired argument management apologists have usedd for years to talk about why all the cuts in Disney quality over the past decade were needed ... because they were good for the bottom line. Well, let me tell you something as someone who always watches the bottom line at bell closing, they haven't been. And a very persuasive arguement can be mde that they have had the opposite effect. <<Do you call news agencies because they use file tapes instead of new pictures when the story is the same either way? >> No. But you've hit on another pet peeve of mine. I often see footage that is very old, out of date or inaccurate in news broadcasts and it's wrong, wrong, wrong. Showing 1988 video of Burger King workers when talking about McDonalds's healthy food initiatives ... showing an Boeing aircraft when discussing problems at Airbus ... or yes, showing WDW when talking about a death at DL. <<It's just business and regardless of the fact that we refuse to acknowledge it as such, there it is. Plain and simple.>> I acknowledge folks making mistakes all the time ... accepting them or the supposed logic behind them is another matter.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<Last 24 hours? You must have been to Swigs.>> Wahoo, you know where the Spirit likes his spirits. That means you know TOO MUCH! The henchmen are on their way. I'm sorry it had to end this way ;-)
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 ^^Yeah ... especially after imbibing a few of our fave spirits! ;-)
Originally Posted By danyoung So here's my take on the spot. I've long stated my displeasure at this type of advertising. Sure, 90% of the public (probably higher) won't know the difference. But for that 10% who do catch it, it becomes a huge example of a production team not doing its homework. So here's how a spot like this gets made. Word comes down to a mid-to-low level producer in the Disney publicity department to produce a Christmas spot. They go to the archives, pick up a box of misc. footage from "Parks", and head to the ad agency. They pore over the footage and come up with their ideas for the spot. Now it's off to the edit suite for a couple of days of putting it all together. During all of this, it's entirely possible that the only person with ANY knowledge of the parks is the mid-to-low level producer, and that person's knowledge is almost definietly a small percentage of the knowledge of the average contributor to this site. And once the spot is done, the final approval before airing will be from the lower executive level - a spot like this wouldn't come near Iger's level, and maybe not even Rasulo's. So now you have a spot on the air which is full of inaccuracies, because no one in the production chain had the knowledge to say "hey, isn't that DisneyLAND's Dumbo?" I haven't seen this spot, but it sounds just as bad as the one a couple years ago that indicated that Walt said "To all who come to this happy place - welcome" on Florida's Main Street. Very bad form, and very easy to fix. Use a mid-to-low level producer who has actually spent time in the parks!
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 While I think Dan's theory is very possible/plausable, I also think it literally could have been a simple exec decision that said make one for both and just stamp a DL or a WDW coda on it. I just think I (and many others here) assume that people in these high level positions actually THINK about what they're doing. They don't. They just act.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<I wonder what happened to Arstogas.>> Yes. I always enjoyed his POV, even if I didn't always agree with it.
Originally Posted By Witches of Morva ORDDU: My sisters and I agree with you on this 100%, Spirit of 74, duckling. While using the wrong footage to promote something else that's similar, it may save money--but it loses integrity and believability. Aside from that, the main stream public out there can surprise you in how much they actually do recognize what they're seeing. ORWEN: It's also false advertising to show footage from one park while pretending to advertise another. It also makes the Disney company look arrogant when they think they can treat guests as though they're 'too dumb' to know the difference. Many of them do know the truth! ORGOCH: Maybe it's really them dang goomers in Marketin' that don't know the dif' between the parks! Didja ever think 'bout that?! Just look at all them books and brochures they puts out that has the wrong pictures in 'em, tryin' ta pass one park off fer a dif'rent one!
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 I firmly believe Bob Iger is a man of great integrity. I also firmly believe that many of his holdover execs (especially in the parks division) have none. Many of those are the people whose job it is to SELL, SELL, SELL the parks and resorts. To them DL and WDW are as interchangable as a Toyota Camry and a Honda Accord.
Originally Posted By wide mouthed frog For someone who claims to be watching the bottom line, and there when the bell rings, you seem to not know that the stock is doing better now that it has for some time. You sound like you have a lot of time on your hands. Use it to educate yourself. Not to mention the subtle changes that are making things better. I agree, the last "Leadership Crew" left a bad taste in my mouth. It will take more than a year to fix the damage made in the "Eisner Era", but it is happening.
