Coporate Brand

“family”, “fun”, “magical”, “imagination”, “dreams”….
These all words that go along with the Walt Disney brand image.

The entire Disney company has a wholesome family feel to it. It provides good clean family entertainment. The theme parks specifically have the motto “happiest place on earth”. The brand image for the theme parks specifically is that it is a place for family vacations that brings family together when families are not as close as they once were. There was a study done about the brand image of Disney specifically the theme parks. It said that even down to the employees that work the rides they are trained for the Disney way and are to be nice and friendly.
The focus of this blog and the study is the launching of the Walt Disney Magical Gatherings vacations and the PR that has gone into this campaign. The purpose of this launch was to provide a way for large groups, or multi households a way to vacation together. It also gave an interactive way, through the Internet, for families to plan their own vacation. The following is one of the phrases that is used when focusing on why people should go on family vacations (or a magical gathering to Disney,

“This year, the Walt Disney World Resort celebrates Magical Gatherings experiences—the special occasions that occur when you come together with friends and family in a place of enchantment to share old memories and make new ones. There’s never been a better time to plan your dream Walt Disney World Resort vacation. And now you can share the magic with those that mean the most to you.”

Through these vacations and through the PR done for these vacation its seems as though the company is trying to solve the following problems, families don’t spend enough time together, other entertainment is bad and inappropriate for families and that friends and families are growing apart.

The website that is used for the Disney family vacations does not focus on the cost. It talks about cost savings or special events families can attend.. These Disney vacations at Disney world have a lot of the work done for them because of the brand image associated with the entire company. Which are things like “fun”, “magical”, family, and “imagination”. On the website for these gatherings they have pictures of big family groups eating and laughing together. Throughout the whole process of planning a vacation is scattered with pictures of the park and is surrounded by the brand image.

This link is to a commercial for the magical gatherings website, it’s a little out dated but it shows how the company was promoting the website and the fact that you can plan your own trip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xgIZlb8RWk. In this you can see the mother with her daughter planning the vacation, which promotes family and planning your own vacation. Through the brand image of the company as well as these magical gatherings, people feel that this is the best vacation they could provide for their families and friends. They feel that will have a once in a lifetime vacation.

corporate crisis

Corporate crisis
· This crisis has to do with the film part of the Walt Disney Company. On January 8th 1999 Disney did a recall of the movie, The Rescuers, a 1977 Disney film because in the background of one of the scenes there is a topless woman. This happens about 38 minutes into the film and occurred in two frames which are shown above. Although there have been rumors of other inappropriate thing in Disney movies this one is clearly true and the images were purposely put there.
· It was confirmed by the Disney spokes person that this image had been present in the film since its theatre release in 1977 and also that the film had been tampered with not by any of the animators but during the post production stage.
· The company decided to recall 3.4 million copies of the film. In order “to keep our promise to families that we can trust and rely on the Disney brand to provide the finest in family entertainment”. This was done after its second release onto VHS and was Disney’s first movie recall. It does say that unless you stop or freeze the movie it is hard to even notice the image in the background. Disney made this announcement but before they did no one even really knew about it.
· After this the Disney Company instituted a policy of inspecting each frame before the release to ensure that this type of thing does not happen again.
· I think that it was good of the company to recall the film, but many are skeptical as to why the company decided to recall this one when other movies have been rumored to have inappropriate images. Another this is why did it take so long to realize this, it wasn’t until 1999 that the movies were recalled even though the movie had been released several times. It was also good that Disney instated policy that this type of thing doesn’t happen again. These slip up or if done intentionally look really bad to the company and they should do all in their power to avoid these things from happening in the future.