WDW Social 'Media' and Conspiracy

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

"Who the {bleep} are these people?"

Let's leave that sit for a bit.

This thread has taken a lot of interesting twists and turns, but I recently talked to a friend at Disney (oh yeah, I still have some) about a variety of things and naturally the whole Social Media/D23/fansite payola topic and I was a bit surprised that Burbank isn't as concerned about how much money is being thrown away (wasted, in my opinion, as you all know) at these 'fanbois/soccer moms/bored housewife' bloggers/podcasters/DVD sellers/IP thieves etc.

Nope. Not saying that isn't a 'concern' just this is Disney where $400 million Test Track knockoffs get built (and there's a helluva rumor concerning that attraction right now), mediocre films (talking TRON Legacy here) have marketing budgets that make NBA contracts look small and millions of dollars in merchandise simply disappears at WDW annually, much before it ever hits a shelf ... so Disney knows how to burn through cash as quickly as the CEO of one of those dubious 'non-profits' that have also flourished of late.

No ... it's just Disney's biggest concern came as a bit of a shock to me.

They want to know who these people are. Literally.

Really.

You see, if you credential a cameraman from an NBC affiliate in South Carolina and he turns out to be a sexual predator, well, that's the responsibility of his employer. ... And he'd likely have been weeded out before even getting hired through a routine background check.

But what if that dude is a podcaster?

That's a question that's been asked.

How many of these folks (many of whom never had real jobs or simply were somehow able to drop a real world existence for a Disney Online MAGICal Lifestyle) have backgrounds that make lily white Disney worry? And what kind of individuals would be 'free' to just do so? How many have been convicted of crimes? How many have simply been accused? How many 'earned' their money in unethical or immoral ways that could reflect poorly on the company? How many have engaged in other activities that would make Disney PR hacks cringe? How many are 'liking' other organizations/causes/websites/products/people that do NOT fit into the Disney BRAND?

A lot, apparently.

Because a lot of these people have MUCH to hide ... it may speak to why many of them have never had or kept real jobs. Just two examples of ' Disney online webmasters/bloggers Gone Wild' that have been uncovered with a little digging include a Mommy who was charged with stealing her child's ADD meds and getting hooked (a felony, btw) and another who has had numerous DUIs, including one that resulted in an accident that injured a child.

Oh, and there was one other disturbing comment my Disney friend made regarding those many bloggers/podcasters invited to the Dream launch. Without the company formally looking into each and every invitee, several were 'known to be' folks with histories of filing claims at WDW in the past prior to their new-found method of gaming the Mouse.

You're TWDC, you REALLY want to be involved with people like that?

As Disney FINALLY begins to look closer with the prying eyes not unlike an employer in present day America, who knows what they'll find.

Understand this is something new in the online world because in real media no vetting is required. It's already been done based upon the journalist's affiliations and accreditations. And, as stated here somewhere maybe 400 posts ago, there is no accreditation body that exists for fan sites, nor could there ever be one ... (if only I could start one as it beats standing out in the heat giving theme park tours for a measly $400-1000 a day, as you know my back-up employment plan ;-) )

Point here is apparently Disney is realizing right now that the 'who?' is more important than the 'how much?' because of how much damage the wrong relationship can cause down the line ... And considering that some of these people (giving a great benefit to many) likely have a lot of baggage that could be too heavy for Disney to carry, it is going to be interesting to see how this is going to play out.

I genuinely feel for some of the D23 reps in Anaheim later this summer because I can already sense they're going to constantly be pulled aside by these folks and asked 'am I all right?' ... 'do I/we have anything to worry about?' ... 'what does (fill in the blank) have to do with whether I am allowed/invited to cover something at WDW?'

Oh ... and the quote that started the post above. That was spoken by a high-ranking exec of TWDC at the Disney Dream launch (I am told sound may even exist of this ;-) ) when surveying some of the 'invited' online folks in the crowd.

Turns out, that's really the key to this whole subject.

 

Originally Posted By Bob Paris 1

Anyone who has read that "tell all" book(forgot the name right now)about the WDC knows that WDW is a MECCA for people who LOVVVVVVE children(if you take my meaning, with NO specific asperions being cast in ANY directions)and for Reedy Creek firemen who really enjoy after work, non-employer-endorsed fun with hoses.

It does NOT surprise me that if you scratch the surface, some of these "Lifestyle Bloggers" may have lots to hide!

 

Originally Posted By ChiMike

48 hours since the Al Weiss posting on the blog and only 7 comments. All positive.

They're really having an open conversation with their customers.

>>"Who the {bleep} are these people?"<<

Good post Spirit. I think that would have been my exact verbal reaction too if I was standing there as an exec, thinking of all the energy and money we had spent for the 'launch'

 

Originally Posted By SpokkerJones

"Anyone who has read that "tell all" book(forgot the name right now)about the WDC knows that WDW is a MECCA for people who LOVVVVVVE children"

This doesn't worry me. Stranger danger may be real but it's relatively rare compared to the abuse that goes on in the home.

You are more likely to be abused by someone you know than by a stranger.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

<<Anyone who has read that "tell all" book(forgot the name right now)about the WDC knows that WDW is a MECCA for people who LOVVVVVVE children(if you take my meaning, with NO specific asperions being cast in ANY directions)and for Reedy Creek firemen who really enjoy after work, non-employer-endorsed fun with hoses.>>

WDW attracts children, so obviously it's going to attract people who love them too (and obviously some who are very sick individuals). ... And I wasn't aware there was any particular issues with bad behavior on the part of Reedy Creek firefighters, but I may have missed something.

Still, I wasn't really headed in that direction, not that there isn't truth in what you say and it IS something Disney is well aware of, even if they'll pretend otherwise.

<<It does NOT surprise me that if you scratch the surface, some of these "Lifestyle Bloggers" may have lots to hide!>>

THAT IS exactly where I was going and that is where Disney is headed in this situation.

It's termed BRAND LIABILITY ... and Disney Legal is now on the case.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

<<48 hours since the Al Weiss posting on the blog and only 7 comments. All positive.>>

I haven't checked. Maybe tomorrow ... but no surprise.

<<They're really having an open conversation with their customers.>>

For a company that either 'tugs on your heartstrings' or takes advantage of emotionally fragile adults with too much disposable income and/or credit and/or disability checks and hooks them on pixie dust like a back alley dealer, you'd think their Social Media Dept. wouldn't be a blatant charade, right?

But it is.

Simply another outlet for its PR hacks to justify their bloated ranks.

I really hope that one of these social media whores has the guts to ask Staggs if Disney intends to build a quarter of what they're planning on showing off at D23 in August (DVC excepted).

>>"Who the {bleep} are these people?"<<

<<Good post Spirit. I think that would have been my exact verbal reaction too if I was standing there as an exec, thinking of all the energy and money we had spent for the 'launch'>>

I would have been thinking many things, most that I can't type here.

~''WDW: Disney's New Loss Leader'' -- The incomparable, irrepressible and ironic, Leehisownself~

 

Originally Posted By EPCOT Explorer

>>>I really hope that one of these social media whores has the guts to ask Staggs if Disney intends to build a quarter of what they're planning on showing off at D23 in August (DVC excepted).<<<<


I'll ask.... but I don't want that wh0re label that comes with it.

...Hopefully the boldness and the dates given speak for themselves.

 

Originally Posted By Bolna

<<Today, well, if you saw Bob Iger in a park he'd have a load of handlers and you'd probably not get near him. And his annual letters read like paeans to Goldman Sachs. Cold and detached. Just like Staggs PR post. Just like the hands-off approach with the fans on the official site.>>

That's exactly the huge discrepancy that is going on here: On the one hand you have a company which relies so much on emotion to sell their product, but then those who run it seem so without any human emotion. They start to communicate with the fans, but only in a one-way-direction. Makes them seem like an empty shell, a nice front with nothing behind.

<<Looking for a word ... OK, got one: disingenuous.

That's the word that comes to mind when I think of The Disney Parks Blog. To social media, that is toxic.>>

Yes, it does fit very well.

<<Add that personal, emotional component and ... well, just take a look at the thread on Disney's fan base that was brought over from that pixie-dusted and crusted MAGICal site. The most ardent fans of WDW are recruiting others to join in creating a website to show just how wrong WDW Co. is getting it. A site to air grievances, to push Disney to 'do the right thing' (something I am VERY proud of them for doing, I might add, even if it took them a decade to notice!)

Isn't that something social media would normally speak to? Wouldn't a company's blog serve that role? Be a place to sound-off and be heard? And answered (even if done so in an very corporate way)? >>

I think most companies still don't dare to use social media that way. From what I understand there are a few examples of successful social media strategies which do exactly that. But I would guess it requires quite a lot of courage and trust in the quality of one's product to give up control to such a degree. Both don't seem to be around much at Disney.

 

Originally Posted By Bolna

<<You're TWDC, you REALLY want to be involved with people like that?>>

The problem is not only that they don't know who these people are, but also by inviting them to events they give them some official "approval".

If you invite a newspaper (or radio station etc.) the invitation is directed at an organisation which is more removed from the actions of any individual working for them. But with social media you invite "online personalities" - individual persons. And they cannot be split into an official part and an unofficial part. Even though one might not know much about the private life of such a person, once it becomes known it cannot be seperated into different issues. And then Disney has created a direct connection between itself and that problematic private life.

 

Originally Posted By EPCOT Explorer

>>>I think most companies still don't dare to use social media that way. From what I understand there are a few examples of successful social media strategies which do exactly that. But I would guess it requires quite a lot of courage and trust in the quality of one's product to give up control to such a degree. Both don't seem to be around much at Disney.<<<


Why should there be? Does the product itself have legs enough to stand on?

I don't think anymore.


Past products do, of course (Like EPCOT. Always gotta bring that up) but currently? Nope.

 

Originally Posted By SpokkerJones

"You see, if you credential a cameraman from an NBC affiliate in South Carolina and he turns out to be a sexual predator, well, that's the responsibility of his employer. ... And he'd likely have been weeded out before even getting hired through a routine background check.

But what if that dude is a podcaster?"

<a href="http://www.angelfire.com/wy/1000/Disney.Exec.html" target="_blank">http://www.angelfire.com/wy/10...xec.html</a>

The original article is obviously not still up, but I remember reading this when it was posted. That's why I thought to look for it.

I doubt the bloggers and other unsightly Internet people are more likely to want to diddle children than employees of any old Fortune 500 company.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

<<That's exactly the huge discrepancy that is going on here: On the one hand you have a company which relies so much on emotion to sell their product, but then those who run it seem so without any human emotion. They start to communicate with the fans, but only in a one-way-direction. Makes them seem like an empty shell, a nice front with nothing behind. >>


And that's a telling difference between the corporate WDC of the 21st century and old Uncle Walt's little company.

I've often said this, but I have a fantasy of thawing him out and putting him in a public setting today. He was real. He swore. He drank. He smoked. He was raw and unedited ... and real.

Something I saw the very first time I met Roy Disney (his nephew, not brother) at the 1990 Shareholders Meeting at the Anaheim CC. He stepped out for a smoke. No handlers around. Michael Eisner and Frank Wells had just announced The Disney Decade ... plans for everything from huge expansions to Anaheim, the building of Euro Disney, the development of a city in Central FLA, a move into the timeshare business ... and loads of amazing attractions (most of which never got built). But ... not the point right here (but likely soon in the leadup to D23 with Disney planning another con job on the fans).

Anyway, Roy and his then wife and daughter got into one nasty fight. Yelling, name calling and f-bombs hurled. I immediately liked Roy because I realized he was REAL. He wasn't some corporate creation.

Disney today is as plastic as the leaves on the Treehouse. It's all fake ... pretentious and obnoxious.

For a BRAND built on connections, they don't want you to actually connect with a CM, let alone one who may have to answer to a complaint or a concern.

So, it's all fake. It's about as real as when a City Hall Guest Relations CM tells you to 'have a MAGICal night' after you complain about the absurdity of buying a taco salad that comes with no salad.

They don't want to show any more emotion than one of the broken AA's in the CoP!

<<Looking for a word ... OK, got one: disingenuous.

That's the word that comes to mind when I think of The Disney Parks Blog. To social media, that is toxic.>>

<<Yes, it does fit very well.>>

I try.

<<Add that personal, emotional component and ... well, just take a look at the thread on Disney's fan base that was brought over from that pixie-dusted and crusted MAGICal site. The most ardent fans of WDW are recruiting others to join in creating a website to show just how wrong WDW Co. is getting it. A site to air grievances, to push Disney to 'do the right thing' (something I am VERY proud of them for doing, I might add, even if it took them a decade to notice!)

Isn't that something social media would normally speak to? Wouldn't a company's blog serve that role? Be a place to sound-off and be heard? And answered (even if done so in an very corporate way)? >>

<<I think most companies still don't dare to use social media that way. From what I understand there are a few examples of successful social media strategies which do exactly that. But I would guess it requires quite a lot of courage and trust in the quality of one's product to give up control to such a degree. Both don't seem to be around much at Disney.>>

Sad, but true.

If Disney talked the talk and then walked the walk, they wouldn't be afraid of communicating with their most loyal fans, guests and consumers. Or, better yet, engaging them in a back and forth, what social media is supposed to be about.

But how is Thomas Smith or his any of his overpaid cronies going to be able to stand by a product that isn't what it is advertised to be. How can he defend the condition of many of the premier attractions in all four parks? The ones people spend thousands of dollars to travel to experience ... if Disney were still doing Disney the Disney Way, this would be a cakewalk for them.

Instead ... it's a minefield.

That's why they read. That's why they ignore ... publicly anyway.

 

Originally Posted By figment1986

I go on a "Dream" cruise and come back to even more discussion... I love reading this thread...

FYI spirit: it appears I lost your info when I got my latest "smarter than the average" phone and changed out my older laptop for my current one...

 

Originally Posted By Bolna

<<For a BRAND built on connections, they don't want you to actually connect with a CM, let alone one who may have to answer to a complaint or a concern.

So, it's all fake. It's about as real as when a City Hall Guest Relations CM tells you to 'have a MAGICal night' after you complain about the absurdity of buying a taco salad that comes with no salad.

They don't want to show any more emotion than one of the broken AA's in the CoP!>>

That reminds about one of the reasons why I am so apprehensive about NextGen: the part which supposedly is about more personalization is exactly that: putting up the facade of a personal interaction while taking all real emotion out of it.

 

Originally Posted By ChiMike

>>That reminds about one of the reasons why I am so apprehensive about NextGen: the part which supposedly is about more personalization is exactly that: putting up the facade of a personal interaction while taking all real emotion out of it.<<

Man, Bolna, what a great point!

In addition, it's almost as if they are allergic to simply doing what theme parks do and that is to keep building attractions. They want every excuse they can get NOT to build-out their attraction offerings. Whether it be this NextGen frivolity, or dining experiences, meet and greets, website activities, upcharge tours, marketing blogs/videos, etc.

They want to make money off as many things as possible that revolve around attractions built many regimes ago. Rather than contribute to the long term health of the company by adding their own substantial attractions. Can't blame them I guess considering even on the small refurbishment they try they typically trip all over themselves.

What a bunch of bozos.

 

Originally Posted By MousDad

>>They want every excuse they can get NOT to build-out their attraction offerings.<<

All part of the bamboozlement. They do it because they can.

 

Originally Posted By EPCOT Explorer

>>>That reminds about one of the reasons why I am so apprehensive about NextGen: the part which supposedly is about more personalization is exactly that: putting up the facade of a personal interaction while taking all real emotion out of it.<<<<

I'm looking at the Disney Parks Blog and thinking that that already started!

 

Originally Posted By Bolna

<<Man, Bolna, what a great point!>>

Thanks for the compliment, Mike. However, I am not sure whether it is just a figure of speech (English sometimes confuses me as it is not my native language), but just to avoid any misconceptions: I am a woman, not a man.

<<They want to make money off as many things as possible that revolve around attractions built many regimes ago. Rather than contribute to the long term health of the company by adding their own substantial attractions.>>

Yes, it looks like there isn't any big picture at all - and it seems like we are discussing exactly that point in various threads at the moment. It shows in the "social media strategy" which concentrates on a tiny group of customers, in the lack of any cohesive plan on how to build out the property and transport people as well as in the maintenance issues.

 

Originally Posted By ChiMike

>>but just to avoid any misconceptions: I am a woman, not a man. <<

Figure of speech, I assure you!

 

Originally Posted By DDMAN26

There's something I've been wanting to ask about this beast of a thread. After looking at some of these (very very)long posts I'm starting to wonder what the issue is with Disney have their own blog for the theme parks. Isn't it their goal to get guests to come to the parks? I understand the issue when it comes to those not affilated with the company getting special treatment at events because they have nothing but good things to say.