Marketing The Magic

The majority of Disney theme parks around the world are designed using a common layout, known as the "hub and spoke" model. It is incredibly useful to apply this same layout to our marketing strategy design. Let's talk about Hub and Spoke Marketing!

An important part of getting our campaigns right is message match in marketing. This is a critically important issue to get right in any marketing campaign, but especially in our ads. Get it right, ROI goes up. Get it wrong, you could be harming your brand. Let's learn what it is with a lesson inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean.

"I'm going to Disney World!" We've all seen the ad spots featuring the MVP of the Super Bowl or the World Cup announcing his or her intention to leave for Disney World (if you're viewing from the east coast) or Disneyland (if you're on the west) after the big win immediately and forthwith. The "What's Next?" marketing campaign has been running for more than 30 years BECAUSE IT WORKS! Let's talk about this campaign and three big lessons we can learn from it.

Dory can teach us a lot about what it takes to succeed in marketing: persistence. Just keep swimming! That's what we'll cover in just ONE MINUTE (or so) in this (very first) Magical Marketing Minute!

We must understand our company's role in its marketing story in order for our marketing to be effective, and that starts with understanding the kind of hero we play. Are we a Prince Philip (arriving at the last moment to save the day), or a Wall-E (working hard and solving problems all along), somewhere in between, or just a bit of both?

From last-minute Prince Philip to always-there Wall-E, there are a range of hero archetypes used in Disney stories. Likewise, we need to understand what kind of hero our companies play in their marketing stories to be able to develop the right marketing strategies.

There are many lessons to learn from Disney legend Jack Lindquist and his long career in marketing for the Disney theme parks. Today, we'll focus on how to create robust, diverse, "synergistic" marketing campaigns in a way that I hope would make Jack Lindquist proud.

Jack Lindquist is one of the Disney marketing legends. From Disney Dollars to Mickey in the Cornfield to a second inauguration for President Ronald Reagan, Mr. Lindquist was a visionary in marketing. What lessons can we learn from his tenure at Disney? Let’s talk about it!

It's vital to understand who our ideal customers are and to craft our marketing to those kinds of potential new customers. We do so using buyer personas. In this week's MTM Live, we continue the discussion around how to use buyer personas in our own marketing.

Walt Disney sat on a park bench, watching his daughters play at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, when the idea for Disneyland began to form. More importantly, his ideal customer for such an amusement park became very clear to him - families who want to play together. Just as Walt knew exactly who he was serving in building Disneyland, we need to study our ideal customers carefully. Let’s talk about how.

Mickey’s 10 Commandments for Imagineers, written originally by Marty Sklar himself, are amazing guidelines for creating the Disney magic we know and love so much. They also apply perfectly to creating amazing marketing. In this episode, we’re going to talk about numbers 6 through 10 of Mickey’s 10 Commandments.

Mickey’s 10 Commandments for Imagineers, written originally by Marty Sklar himself, are amazing guidelines for creating the Disney magic we know and love so much. They also apply perfectly to creating amazing marketing. In this episode, we’re going to talk about numbers 6 through 10 of Mickey’s 10 Commandments.

In this episode of MTM Live, our weekly live stream discussion, we discuss the first 5 of Mickey's 10 Commandments applied to modern digital marketing.

One of the very first inspirations for this whole project was something I discovered in a beautiful book written by and about the Disney Imagineers. It was a list of “Mickey’s 10 Commandments” for Imagineers, and I was immediately struck by how directly applicable each of those 10 commandments is to marketing. In part 1, we'll cover the first 5 of Mickey's 10 Commandments (for marketing), which are: 1. Know your audience 2. Wear your guest's shoes 3. Organize the flow of people and ideas 4. Create a "wienie" 5. Communicate with visual literacy

In our first episode of the regular Marketing the Magic show, we introduced the notion and importance of using storytelling techniques in our marketing. In this first episode of MTM Live, our weekly followup live streamed discussion, we'll recap the lesson and talk about the practicalities of implementing storytelling techniques into our marketing strategy. We'll also cover topics like originality in marketing and the importance of agility for emerging opportunities.

When it comes to the Walt Disney Company, there can be no argument that one of its greatest strengths - going back to the very beginning - is the company’s ability to tell a great story. It is just as important to focus on the techniques and benefits of storytelling in our marketing, but why, exactly?

In this brief introduction, we talk about what Marketing the Magic is and how it came about as a show exploring practical marketing lessons inspired by the Walt Disney Company for business owners and marketing professionals.