“What will you celebrate” brings moans from Disney fans
“What will you celebrate?” That is the big question that Disney hopes people will answer at the theme parks. As I am sure you know by now, the “major announcement” made last week was Disney’s new marketing promotion, essentially an invitation to come and celebrate something, birthdays, anniversaries, etc., at Disney’s parks.
There is good and bad in this plan, as with most things Disney’s does in the marketing realm. The good thing is that at least it is not a sweepstakes. People who have been reading this blog know that I have truly disliked this “Year of a Million Dreams” nonsense from the get go. At least in this promotion everyone has the chance to participate. Anyone can schedule their vacation so that they can get something for their celebration. Not everyone will, but at least it is not a random Ed McMahon-style thing where the vast majority of those who visit will get nothing under any circumstances.
As far as a promotion goes, it is not terrible. But these “celebrations” usually mean Disney offers some improvement to the parks to tie-in with it. The bad thing here is that Disney is basically doing nothing to really improve the parks during this time frame. I turn to Mouse Planet’s Walt Disney World Park Update from Monday. They put it best…
The big marketing push at U.S. Disney parks for 2009 (with emphasis on “marketing”) is “What Will You Celebrate?” No new attractions, no new shows, no new parks, just a “come and celebrate.” Or, as a cast member snarked to MousePlanet’s Adrienne Vincent-Phoenix back in July, “We got nothing, you think of a reason to visit.” For Walt Disney World visitors, it’s a bit of deja vu, harking back to the “Magical Gatherings” promotion, where the promotional focus for the resort for all of 2004 was based on convincing people to bring their large family groups to Walt Disney World.
So in the end Disney disappoints again. But with all of the budget cuts taking place, did we really think anything else would happen? They can’t even afford the silly sweepstakes anymore???
Randy said,
September 24, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
The “sweepstakes” made a lot of people mad and/or disappointed. I was at WDW several times during the YOAMD sweepstakes and got a free strawberry bar at a cart. Big whoop. I have also read that while the guests that received prizes were happy, the guests in the standby line watching the “magic fastpass” group walk by was none too happy.
The Celebrate promotion is good in that anyone can take advantage of it, if they wish. It will probably cost Disney more money than the sweepstakes. I don’t think the change has anything to do with saving money, but it was just time to do something different. This promotion is not well received by “Disney Fans”, but we are probably not the audience Disney is going after. They are trying to attract new guests- or those that haven’t been in a while. They are not marketing this promotion to give away free days to those of us that were going to go to the parks anyway.
grumpwurst (aka Ray) said,
September 25, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
I’m in agreement with what Randy said about the Disney Fans not being the target audience. But, I want to take it further. I don’t believe the Disney Fan is EVER the target audience when Disney formulates promotions and marketing strategies.
They know they have our dollars. They know we are coming back even if they don’t have some sort of annual promotion.
They are going with the approach that they want to bring new people to the park even if they never come back