Between Books - Inside the Disney Marketing Machine

It has become a family tradition to watch the Disney parade on ABC on Christmas day.  During this two hour presentation, viewers see a parade filmed primarily from Walt Disney World on a network owned by Disney with hosts employed by ABC and Disney cable networks which highlights the parks in-between video snippets about Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, Aulani, Disney films, and everything else you  can think of made by the mouse.  If Synergy, a much maligned work for marketing integration, had a showcase this parade would be it! 

Inside the Disney Marketing Machine: In the Era of Michael Eisner & Frank Wells by Lorraine Santoli outlines the author’s experiences within Disney marketing and publicity efforts beginning in 1978.  Santoli moved to California planning to be a script writer but finding a very different career in Disney marketing.  She would eventually move into the position of manager of Corporate Synergy and Special Projects.   In this role she would market Disney to Disney!   Santoli would interact with numerous Disney legends including Charlie Ridgeway, Jack Lindquist, Frank Wells and the synergy champion Michael Eisner.  Santoli outlines a number of her projects marketing Disney parks and creating synergy experiences.   Her synergy discussion provides in-depth detail on how she was able to build and support a highly effective synergy machine. 

Overall, I found Inside the Disney Marketing Machine easy to read, enjoyable and helpful.  One of the important lessons that one finds in Santoli’s writing is the power of personal relationships within the workplace.  It is the relationships that she created throughout Disney including those between others that made synergy work.  As a professional, one reads of catered breakfasts and some may think “why do you need to bribe employees to do their job?”  Seriously I have heard this complaint in the last month.  But really Santoli was creating connections which fostered teamwork through networking, the treats were just the tool.  Stronger connections were forged within the company and units were more willing to work with each other.  The second part of her dastardly plan was really information sharing.  Due to the relationships she had created in the diverse company, key champions would give attention to her targeted messages and best of all act on them.  These are key business lessons that we can all learn from; the power of relationship and information.  Most professionals can likely reflect on projects that broke down due to a lack of networking and communication.  And much of that breakdown is often based on when people do no read and act on messages.   

Though as a Cyclone fan I do need to remind everyone that Iowa State University (Go Cyclones!) and the University of Iowa are two very different schools.  Of course, I assume only a minority of readers are ISU alumni who take a certain pride in their school’s unique Disney connection!  But sadly this reviewer had his cardinal and gold socks on when he read her accounting of the Mickey Mouse cornfield.   

Inside the Disney Marketing Machine is an excellent account of the founding of Disney’s highly effective synergy campaign.  Santoli teaches readers how to market within a company and the results of increased integration, cooperation and profits.  Santoli takes us from the ground up as synergy was created from scratch within Disney.  And we can all learn valuable lessons about relationship building from her experience, especially since we can still see synergy’s tremendous results today for Disney.   And of course, Disney fans will love looking at the synergy machine from the inside of the mouse. 

Review Copy Provided by Theme Park Press 

Walt's Windows - Mickey's Cornfield

One of my favorite stories in Jack Lindquist’s In Service to the Mouse is set in Betweenland.

Lindquist was flying across Texas one day and realized that he could see circles created by natural gas fields at 35,000 feet.  His mind then jumped to the ability to see a famous three circled profile from a plane.  As he considered the idea, he realized that a Mickey Mouse that could be seen from airplanes would be a good idea for Mickey’s 60^th birthday in 1988.  After a vast amount of research it was determined that an Iowa cornfield would provide the best color contrasts to see Mickey Mouse from the air.  Lindquist’s staff contacted Iowa State University (or should we say Between University) and selected together the farm of the Pitzenberger family of Sheffield, Iowa.  In a turn of irony, the Pitzenberger family rented the 3,000 acres from a gentleman named Walt!  The small town embraced the idea of the Mickey Mouse birthday card and used it as an event to promote their small town of 1,224 (Lindquist, 183-4).

An Associated Press story recounts how Joe Pitzenberger created the mouse,

Using a design developed with the help of a surveyor, Joe Pitzenberger planted corn in the shape of Mickey’s head surrounded by oats in a day and a half last spring.  He said it took just three hours longer than usual to plant the field, which has been kept alive by rain that has eluded some other areas in the state (“Iowans help Mickey Mouse Celebrate”)

Magical rain was the key to growing Mickey Mouse in Iowa.  The summer of 1988 was a drought for Iowa.  Yet, the rain came to Sheffield and the crops grew and Mickey Mouse, the crop circle, took shape on a Betweenland field (Lindquist, 185).

The design consists of 6.5 million corn plants surrounded by 300 acres of oats, and its 1.1 miles from the tip of Mickey’s nose to the end of his ear, said Disneyland spokeswoman LouAnne Cappiello (“Iowans help Mickey Mouse Celebrate”).   

Photo Taken from www.mouseclubhouse.com

As they say in Field of Dreams, If you build it they will come.  And come they did.  For the official opening Disney put on a Birthday party in Iowa.  Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy all attended and met with guests.  Earforce One, a Mickey shaped hot-air balloon, soared in the Iowa sky.  Around 15,000 people came to celebrate Mickey’s birthday.  On the following weekends Iowans visited Sheffield to see Mickey’s profile from miles around.  The publicity went beyond Iowa as the cornfield was covered by major media outlets.  And overflying airlines alerted passengers to the hidden Mickey outside the airplane (Lindquist, 185). 

Sometimes we dream of Disney, trying to think of ways to reconnect when we live far away from Orlando and Anaheim.  Sometimes we need to remember that the mouse sometimes comes to us!   

 

Between Books - In Service to the Mouse

Jack Lindquist within In Service to the Mouse: My Unexpected Journey to Becoming Disneyland’s First President shares experiences from his 38 years of marketing and leading Disney parks.  The book chronicles his experiences from the opening day of Disneyland (as a guest), an entry level employee, his various roles marketing Disneyland and eventually being named the first President of Disneyland in 1990.  The book consists of five sections that represent different periods of Lindquist’s Disney career.  Within each division are chapters consisting of two to eight pages focusing around one theme or in some cases one anecdote.   

This memoir shares the tales of a Disney legend and treasure.  Lindquist represents part of a group that remembers Walt Disney the person and helps link the parks and movies under the Disney brand to the man and innovator.  Personally I love reading these sort of memoirs.  As Lindquist notes his time for remembering is getting shorter daily and I love that these stories are being collected so my children and their children may better know Walt Disney the man and the men who helped create the initial magic of Disneyland.  The chapters are short and easy to read.  They benefit from chapter titles and editing that keeps each chapter focused around that title.  In many ways the text is very similar to Charles Ridgeway’s Spinning Disney’s World in the sort of stories told, in fact both men mention each other and have some overlapping memories.  But In Service to the Mouse benefits from better organization.  Lindquist is very honest about successes and failures.  For example he notes his personal belief that a second park needed to be opened in California but adds that Disney’s California Adventure Park was a failure and why.  He also laments bad choices in merchandising and pricing while also adding that while the Michael Eisner and Frank Wells regime repeatedly raised park prices it was due to the undervaluing of Disneyland tickets in the years before they joined the company.

I really enjoyed this memoir.  It provides insight into key historical moments in Disney history while also sharing humorous stories that Lindquist experienced.  Personally I loved Lindquist’s stories around discussions with foreign nations about sponsoring Epcot World Showcase Pavilions filled with misunderstandings and government politics, his interactions with Michael Eisner and Lindquist’s role with acquiring the Anaheim Angels for Disney.  The memoir made me nostalgic for a Disneyland that I never visited, lamenting the loss of the Juniors pricing category as I prepare to pay adult prices for a child on future visits (allow me to step off my soap box now).  Lindquist successfully gives life to a Walt Disney I never met, a Disneyland I never visited and a Mickey Mouse that Lindquist gave over 38 years of his life to serve. 

Postscript:  Typically I would not comment on customer service.  However, I cannot ignore my experience purchasing In Service to the Mouse.  Instead of purchasing the book from Amazon.com or another retailer I chose to buy the book directly from http://www.inservicetothemouse.com/ due to the opportunity to buy an autographed copy for my collection at a reasonable price.  I was quite surprised a few hours after ordering to receive an email with a $5 refund.  I was told in the accompanying note that in a few days that they were launching a holiday sale and they were allowing me to purchase the book at the discounted price.  Honestly, I was fully prepared to pay the full price of my original purchase and would not have been angered by seeing a discount a few days later.  But the small refund gave me an example of the type of magic Mr. Lindquist spent 38 years creating.