[分享]Career Marketing--Marketing Moves at the Mouse House

[twkevin]

BusinessWeek on-line
MAY 8, 2005
MBA INSIDER: A DAY IN THE LIFE

Marketing Moves at the Mouse House

That's the area career switcher Wenny Tung shifted into at the Disneyland Resort. She reveals how her B-school classes came in handy
I worked for Walt Disney World in Florida for several years before business school, taking a variety of positions in operations, entertainment, and sales. Although I spent my summer interning for a consumer packaged-goods company, I wanted to follow my passion back into the entertainment industry after I'd obtained my MBA. I utilized my Orlando contacts to get my résumé into consideration for open positions throughout the company and was fortunate enough to interview with the Disneyland Resort.

I'm an associate manager, product marketing, for the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, Calif. Each of our theme parks and segment divisions has its own marketing group. My job responsibilities are to develop and manage the marketing strategy behind new attractions and events.

SHIFTING APPROACHES. Currently, my primary projects include the launch of the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters attraction and its accompanying interactive online component on disneyland.com/buzz, the relaunch of the Space Mountain roller coaster, marketing for the Downtown Disney District, and introducing Block Party Bash, a new interactive parade at Disney's California Adventure Park. I'm also involved in the launch of Disneyland's 50th birthday celebration at all of our parks around the world.

Having worked for the company before, I had a pretty solid understanding of the Disney culture. The biggest learning curve I had was approaching problems from a marketing, rather than operations, perspective, where most of my past experience had been.

Here's a snapshot of my typical day:

5:30 a.m. -- I head to the gym to meet friends from work. In many cases, these are the same people who run in the Disney Triathlon or MS150 Ride for the Cure. I just try to keep up.
8 a.m. -- The e-mail onslaught begins. I begin working through various questions and voice mails. Occasionally, I might be at Operations' morning meetings to talk about marketing plans for our new attractions or shows.
9 a.m. -- Strategy meetings, where we bring our marketing plans to a cross-functional executive team to approve before moving forward. Today, we present our rollout plan for the relaunch of the popular Space Mountain roller coaster. To keep things interesting, my manager and I dress up as star fields by putting glow-in-the-dark stars on our clothing (creativity counts here). Many questions are asked, some elements are removed, some added. Lots of follow-up, but the overall feeling is positive.
11 a.m. -- I grab some desk time and bounce between returning calls and e-mails and revising our strategic documents based on comments from the executive team.
12 p.m. -- Lunch with my fellow Cast Members (Disney-speak for employees). Today, the subjects include the latest Hollywood gossip, the quickly ticking countdown until we launch our big 50th anniversary campaign, and our plans for the weekend.
1 p.m. -- Out to the theme park. One of the greatest parts of my job is the ability to interact with lots of different people. We meet with a team of Walt Disney Imagineers (those extremely creative people who come up with all sorts of wonderful concepts for the parks), and go on a walk-through of Space Mountain. We identify potential places to have the opening event, and ask lots and lots of questions to ensure we're accurate in our messaging.
2 p.m. -- Back to my desk. This time I touch base with partners across the resort and company about positioning, logos, images, and copy.
3 p.m. -- It's numbers time. Forecasts happen every month, and I'm working on a monster one: The marketing budget for our 50th campaign. We meet with the business-planning department to determine the ebb and flow of our budget shifts.
4:30 p.m. -- I meet with the account manager assigned to execute the print ads featuring Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. We review the copy and image, ensuring it's true to the overall strategy and legal nomenclature before it goes to print.
5 p.m. -- Quick conference call with the property-management group at the Downtown Disney District to discuss some of the advertising requests and promotional ideas our third-party operating tenants have.
5:30 p.m. -- Following up on questions that have built up throughout the day. Not sure what people did before e-mail and phones.
6:30 p.m. -- Out the door and usually on the way to meet friends for dinner. I'll probably check my e-mail and calendar before going to bed, just so I have an idea of what's coming up tomorrow.

An alum advised me to stretch beyond marketing courses and take additional finance and accounting classes while I was at Duke. I'm glad I listened. I've been more involved on the finance side of things than I originally thought I'd be. If I could go back to B-school, I'd probably take even more finance courses.

Someone with marketing experience may not need an MBA to get this type of position. But as a career switcher, I needed the credibility and education an MBA provides. My group at work has a mix of MBAs and non-MBAs
Throughout my career with Disney, I have always found my next position through someone I knew. I always say the key to success is networking, networking, networking.

[Chang,Stella]

Someone with marketing experience may not need an MBA to get this type of position. But as a career switcher, I needed the credibility and education an MBA provides. My group at work has a mix of MBAs and non-MBAs

What I can say?
anyway, thanks for sharing.