Interestingly enough, I left Georgia-Pacific in June after working there for 8 years in order to move to Florida and work for Disney (working in HR for both companies). I was quite shocked to hear the news this week on the cast portal. My former boss is now the VP of HR for that business segment at GP, so I got to talk to her about it a little bit.
GP has changed its image over the years from being a manufacturer of wood products (you can buy plywood at Home Depot) and copy paper (Office Depot, Staples, etc.) to one of marketing toward family consumers. GP had a decade of growth in which they acquired several different operations. While GP had its own paper products (Sparkle, Angel Soft, Coronet), the acquisition of Fort James gave GP a stronger brand presence (Brawny, Dixie, Quilted Northern to name a few).
The company shift has been away from hardware consumer (although that is GP's original bread and butter since the company started close to 80 years ago) to the family consumer at Walmart, Target, Sams. With the recent venture into NASCAR, it makes perfect sense that GP be the sponsor of the motor cars attraction at Disney-MGM Studios. In addition, GP manufactures "home away from home products" -- those bathroom and kitchen products that are used in hospitals, hotels, and other venues where you are outside of your home and comfort zone in an effort to feel a little more comfortable with familiar product branding. So, GP would want to continue with that effort of being family oriented by affiliating itself with the most popular vacation spot in the world.
And, it doesn't hurt Disney much by having another sponsor to avoid internal operating costs for another attraction. The only thing that could possibly hurt Disney in the process is that GP has a lot of pending litigation related to asbestos. Up until the end of my tenure there, GP was trying to back legislation to create a fund for the lawsuits instead of having to go to court for every single thing. In addition, there were some old environmental liabilities that GP had. So, it's just a question of Disney being cautious about being affiliated with those types of issues.
Sorry for rambling. I just thought it was an interesting topic given my past with GP and my future with Disney.
