This is a tale of two balloons. Or at least, two sets of balloons.
The New York Times sent up a lot of hot air recently about the upcoming Pixar film, Up (sorry for the play on words). Much of the conversation was not so much around whether it would be successful, as it would be about whether it would be a mega hit, like Finding Nemo. These concerns are generally coming from Wall Street, or by financial types still pontificating over whether Disney’s purchase of Pixar was worth $7.4 billion dollars.
Iger responded appropriately by saying: “We seek to make great films first. If a great film gives birth to a franchise, we are the first company to leverage such success. A check-the-boxes approach to creativity is more likely to result in blandness and failure.”
But the second concern voiced by the Times was around the merchandising opportunities of this film. Critics point to whether this film will even match up to the revenue generated by the merchandise in Ratatouille. That film, following the all-time champ for merchandising, Cars, failed in finding a market for kids wanting to buy a rat. The gang from Radiator Springs on the other hand, racked up more than $5 billion in merchandising sales (half of which is in my kid’s bedroom).
Of course, using one segment of Disney’s business to promote and support another is known as synergy. Since the 1990s there has been much talk about synergy and its use in the Walt Disney Company. Perhaps that is one of Michael Eisner’s greatest contributions, trying to get organizations to synergize. The Lion King was the king of that. There were movies, attractions, merchandise, and even Broadway shows. But even lesser franchises created synergy, such as The Mighty Ducks, who had not only movies and jerseys, but an actual team.
Even today, from a marketing approach, Disney does a pretty amazing job of creating synergy around its key brands. There’s Pixie Hollow not only at Disneyland, but in a unique gardening exhibit at Epcot’s Flower & Garden Festival. There’s merchandise everywhere for High School Musical, and even a show over at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, with the same over at Disney’s California Adventure and at Disney Studios Paris. We see not only is there Toy Story Mania, opened simultaneously at The Studios and at California Adventure, but now Disney Interactive offers the same gaming experience exclusively on Wii.
Honestly, is any corporation in America better in terms of creating synergy in the market place? Disney is probably the best of the best.
So what has happened with Up? Is Pixar not working collaboratively with retail? Not likely. After all, John Lassetter is the biggest kid when it comes to toys. Since Toy Story, he has shown particular concern with making certain that the merchandise behind a film was what it should be. And he has taken a personal interest of becoming involved with what would make great toys for a film, literally to a point of sitting down on the floor and playing with the toys himself.
It’s simply that this film won’t be calling for merchandise like Cars or Toy Story. It also means that Lassetter ‘s much more preoccupied with the essence of the story and the messages sent, then how much revenue is generated. As he said himself, “Quality is the best business plan.”
I think Pixar gets synergy, despite how many trinkets fly off the shelves of Wal-Mart after this film.
But it doesn’t mean the rest of the organization gets it. That brings us up to the next set of balloons.
What does synergy look like in this recent What Will You Celebrate campaign? One wonders. Here the symbol of this celebration campaign is once again, balloons. No, not the kind in Up, although that might have been interesting. These are largely Mickey Mouse balloons. And with that comes again the problem around retail. Disney isn’t making any money off the balloons. What do I mean by that?
When I take people to a Disney park, I walk them about and then I ask them, which of the cast members you’ve seen are not actual Disney employees but are outside contractors? Sometimes they respond with the characters, or the entertainers, or the custodial hosts and hostesses. They are often surprised when I point them right toward the balloon host standing prominently in the middle of Main Street. Yes, the balloon seller? Why? It’s simple. A couple of years ago, Disney decided that selling balloons was too much of a bother, and they handed the operation over to one of their operating partners—the folks who do the caricatures, parasols, and silhouette artistry. That operating partner goes way back to the days of Walt Disney.
I wonder how many at Team Disney are aware of that. If they are, why is the entire campaign centered solely around balloons? Merchandise could have told them that there was no money to be made off of promoting the campaign through the use of balloons. It’s quite simple. Disney doesn’t make more money by promoting balloons any more than they really make by promoting Tokyo Disneyland. That’s because they don’t own the balloon concession any more than they own Tokyo Disneyland.
Mind you if that same operating partner approached Disney two years ago and asked if they could pay big money to advertise their balloons on monorails, they would have been turned down. Now, that same concessionaire has been handed it on a silver plate. As a third-party vendor, you can’t pay for the kind of promotion Disney has given them. Balloons have to be doing better than ever because Disney promotes it everywhere and anywhere around property.
Much to the chagrin of merchandise operations at Disney. Clearly, no one talked to them about what all the banners were going to show. If I were in merchandise for Disney and they had shown me all the promotional material in advanced, or had asked my opinion, I would have moved so fast to come up with something else like a Mickey Mouse hat with birthday cones on top of it. And that kind of merchandise probably would have sold like hot cakes. Instead, they gave the retail promotion to a third-party operation.
It becomes even stranger at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, where balloons are not even sold due to the safety of the animals. Yet, there are customized Animal Kingdom banners all over the park with balloons on them, to include a Tree of Life “globe” of some sort. Who in Disney’s Animal Kingdom operations team was asked about whether they wanted banners promoting balloons in their park?
At the Disney resorts, I really wonder if anyone is talking to the other. And talking to each other is at the heart of synergy.
Of course this column was never intended to be about Disney. It was really intended to be an opportunity to benchmark and examine our own organizations. What does this look like in your business? Where are you failing to communicate, to collaborate, to synergize? Is your organization buckling under the weight of a infrastructure that isn’t talking to each other? Are your choices directly thought out or are they unintentional?
Learn from Disney and Pixar. Look at what they’re doing right when it comes to synergy. Look at the lessons to be learned when one part of the organization isn’t talking to others.
Synergy. It’s how you lead the magic.
By communicating.
