Blessed with stories, bedazzled by bloggers, Disneyland Paris shares content secrets with Pamela Whitby

Walt Disney once said: ‘Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language.’

Little could he have known just how important pictures would become in telling the story of the brand he founded in today’s increasingly mobile and social world. Claire Bilby, senior vice president of marketing for Disneyland Paris, has to admit that when it comes to marketing content, “we are blessed with stories”. And even better still “we have a strong following of fans that love Disney and will post content on our social media platforms”.

That sort of goes without saying. From the dream that began with a mouse, nine decades later Disney today is, after all, a household name attracting around 100 million visitors to its theme parks each year. And for a huge percentage of those visitors, the brand inhabits their hearts and minds and many are willing to share their experiences with others.

Of all of our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speak the most universally understood language Walt Disney

Admittedly, however, Disney has been a bit of a slow starter on the mobile front but that is changing. In late 2013, Walt Disney World launched its mobile optimised website followed by Disneyland California this summer. In October not long after Bilby makes her keynote address in Berlin, Disneyland Paris’s new website will go live in the UK, with France following at the beginning of November. A total of eight languages will be rolled out for a total of 17 sites until May 2015, making it the first Disney Park website outside US to be optimised for smartphones, tablets and desktops. The result will be a completely new and improved look and feel, intuitive navigation and immersive content and media, which will make telling the brand story in Europe that much easier.

Show and tell, and make it fun

Awareness, intent, conversion are three pillars on which Disney’s marketing strategy rests, and are applied to how the company uses content. Telling the Disney story as authentically as possible is all part of the vision and user-generated content today plays a big role in branded campaigns. “We love user-generated content and our guests produce a lot of content,” says Bilby. So as a company that has built its empire on creating engaging content, this is a primary focus for the group’s marketing teams.   

Examples of how Disney has harnessed user-generated content and/or created fun content that engages users include:

1.      The castle stunt at Disneyland Paris last year, which encouraged users to ‘Create your Castle of Imagination’.
2.       The ‘When are you going to tell them’ campaign, where guests are encouraged to film the reaction of their children to being told they are going to Disneyland.
3.      The ‘Show your Disney side’ camping has been the biggest push to balance user-generated and brand generated content so far in the US at Walt Disney World and Disneyland California. This campaign show cases guests’ own content from social media on the Disney site and the aim is to give the fans, who already feel a sense of ownership of the brand the exposure that they crave and revel in.
4.      The ultimate tweet is a photo of 140 Disney characters gathering in a shape of a giant hashtag. From a social point of view, this is an example of the group’s strategy to create fun, shareable content on social media such as Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat or Twitter.

Bagging a blogger

As Bilby points out, user-generated content serves many purposes and Disney takes its blogging community seriously, valuing all types of bloggers from foodies to style gurus to the invaluable lifestyle bloggers. So when the long-awaited Ratatouille-themed mini-land coined La Place de Rémy opened at Disneyland Paris in July, and with it a new restaurant Gusteau’s, it made sense to harness the foodie bloggers. “Blogs can help to inform visitors about what is going on in the parks, provide top tips for maximising the journey, give advice on what to eat and where and so on and they often bring a new angle to the Disney story,” Bilby explains.

We are blessed with stories

Claire Bilby, SVP marketing, Disneyland Paris

Another strategy used to harness passionate fans is the Disney Parks Moms Panel where guests, who are also experts on the product, share opinions with those looking for information. “They’re independent from us but selected for their excellent knowledge of the Disney destination in which they specialise,” says Bilby. “These Moms and some Dads too can provide rich, credible knowledge to other guests in the vacation planning process and be great brand advocates.”

Top tips from Disney:

• Keep it simple:  True to Walt Disney’s view that pictures still speak the most universally understood language, Bilby advises thinking big with pictures and keeping text short and to the point.
• Put the customer first: Once that conversion happens, Disney’s knows that it’s equally important to keep the customer happy and engaged, and games can help. “We recently launched a Ratatouille themed game so when you’re standing in line, the kids have something to do to pass the time.
• Be thoughtful: The key is to be thoughtful about the prompts for user-generated content. “Tell us about meeting your favorite princess’ works better than just ‘Show us your photo and add a hashtag’.
• Don’t rush: Take time to develop a great stage for that content. Again beautifully animated Instagram photos work better than a basic photo gallery on Facebook.
• Focus on the positive: Of course sometimes there is negative feedback, but Disney’s aims to focus on sharing positive messages through its own social channels and ensuring that passionate fans have the latest official information.  
• Measure your marketing activity: By conducting numerous surveys, measuring click-throughs, monitoring behaviour, such as where the customer drops off the website, and calls into the central reservation system, Disney is better equipped to tweak and tailor the marketing message. 
• Know your audience: Where the person is, is essential when it comes to knowing what information to target them with. So for example, the European market is very package driven, so this is always a focus in marketing material whereas in the US people tend to go for a more a la carte experience. For visitors to Paris from the UK, Disneyland Paris always pushes transport in the package.

New developments

Aside from the mobile piece, Disney is currently looking at ways to take the entire Disney Guest experience to the next level at all destinations; how and when that happens depends on a number of factors. Magicband, for example, has launched at Walt Disney World as has free WiFi across the 40-square mile park in Orlando, but that’s not the case in Paris. “We offer free WiFi in our hotels and are currently looking at rolling it out within the park,” explains Bilby. Free WiFi would allow visitors to use their smartphones more often, and create more opportunity to gather valuable customer data. 

Finally, Disney has already said it will be an early adopter of Apple Pay. “Our guests are going to love the convenience of Apple Pay, which will bring an easy, secure and private way to make purchases at Disney Store and Walt Disney World Resort,” she says.

To hear more from Claire Bilby, SVP marketing at Disney, and other senior executives from the world's most innovative brands, join us in Berlin on October 1-2 for Online Marketing, Mobile & Social Media in Travel 2014

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