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Why
Lie?
Around the time you read this update on Tuesday, DCA will be hosting
a relatively low key grand opening ceremony for the attraction (and
perhaps the Don Tomas snack bar). Unlike recent grand openings for
the Submarines or the new Space Mountain, this DCA ceremony will be
short and sweet and without a big budget party attached to it, with a
few C List celebrities and some low-level pyrotechnics being the only
real excitement.
By Wednesday, the new ride will be up and running daily
for anyone who wants to wait in line. And it's on Wednesday when the
Guest Relations team in Disneyland's City Hall is preparing to don the
bullet proof vests and do battle with all of the confused tourists at
Disneyland looking for the new Toy Story ride featured on the TV
commercials and all the freeway billboards.
While the design and operation of this new attraction have been
debuting smoothly and easily, the folks in TDA's Marketing department,
known oddly as "Yellow Shoes Marketing", are making it
difficult for the paying customers by refusing to admit that this new
ride is in DCA. These are the same folks who went to war with WDI six
months ago over what to call this new attraction, with WDI officially
winning the battle and christening the ride Toy Story Midway Mania in
both California and Florida. But the Marketing goons slunk back to their
office with a trick up their sleeve, and went ahead and ignored the
actual title of the attraction and instead began calling it simply Toy
Story Mania in all printed and televised media.
As if that weren't enough, when it came time to create the package of
advertising for the West Coast marketplace, the Marketing folks insisted
that they not admit this attraction was at Disney's California
Adventure. It's no secret now that in all arms of the Disney company
that DCA is known as a "damaged brand" and a name that has little
positive equity with customers far and wide.
While WDI mulls over
possible name changes for the Park for 2011, the folks in Marketing are
simply going to pretend the place doesn't exist until WDI decides on a
new name and begins the extreme makeover in earnest. Midway Mania was an
attraction greenlit in '05 when Matt Ouimet was at the helm in TDA, and
it predates the final approval of the 1.2 Billion dollar budget to
remake the struggling park. If Marketing had their way, DCA would be
completely ignored until all of the fixes are in place and they can tout
the park as something new and unrelated to the original DCA whose only
advantage was being the punchline to a bad joke.
The TV ad uses Main Street. Still:
David "Darkbeer" Michael
When you realize that the DCA brand name likely won't exist a few
years from now the thought process behind not mentioning the park name
in TV and print ads makes a bit more sense, at least to someone safely
sitting in an office far from the park's customers. But the reality faced
this summer by arriving tourists and day trippers who have been led to
believe that the ride is actually inside Disneyland somewhere is the
dark side of this marketing driven decision.
While
the Disneyland Resort logo appears, and technically the ride is at the
Disneyland Resort, that logo has purposely played up the beloved
Disneyland name in the classic font, while the tiny word "Resort"
virtually disappears at the bottom.
DCA does not appear in the ads. Still:
David "Darkbeer" Michael
Even the new bland DCA logo (designed to prevent anyone from attaching
much emotion to the name) has been kept off of all the TV and print advertising
and is only seen on esplanade signage well after visitors arrive at the resort.
To customers untrained in Marketing trickery, this new ride
is apparently at Disneyland USA. Of course, it's not really, and that
has the Guest Relations team battening down the hatches for the line of
angry visitors who never could find the new Toy Story ride at
Disneyland.
Esplanade sign with new plain logo. Photo: David "Darkbeer" Michael
Luckily the alarm bells being rung by Operations managers in
the park have been heard by their new Senior Vice President, Michael O'Grattan. For at least the first few weeks a small
battalion of Toy
Story Green Army Men will spend summer mornings marching around the
ticket booths trying to get the word out that this summer's new ride is
over at DCA, and not at Disneyland. That last minute tactic should help
a bit, but likely won't catch everyone.
This mess is yet another example for most folks in Anaheim and
Glendale of how out of touch the Marketing department is, and how little
accountability they have for their actions. You wouldn't believe the
fireworks that were set off when the Marketing folks wanted to wrap
WDI's new fleet of Mark VII monorails in puffy "dream cloud" ads
this summer. It took nearly every bit of executive firepower WDI could
muster to beat back that boneheaded idea from the Yellow Shoes Marketing
team.
While the Marketing folks have had some legitimately great ideas
in recent years, from funny TV commercials to unique in-park publicity
stunts, their ego and political clout seems to have grown way too big
for their britches. And because their recently vague campaigns and
slightly dishonest wording makes a lot of paying customers angry, they
have few friends amongst those who actually work inside the parks or hotels.
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