Spirited Spring Break News, Observations & Thoughts ...

[TP2000]

It is all a scam, but so many people would lose jobs and livelihoods (much like Wall Street) that it perpetuates itself.

Looking at some of those videos and photos, the women have a look like 'I know I don't belong here, but, God, I am happy that I am. Please, don't let me look like a fraud.'

Hey, we all like VIP treatment. The issue is we all don't deserve it.

Yeah, that's exactly it. To be clear, I don't fault these women for taking Disney up on their offer of a fabulous 4 day weekend for their families at Disneyland with all the free perks and bells and whistles and cocktails. What loving mother wouldn't jump at that chance for their family?

Heck, they had a private catered dinner in Toontown and private breakfast in Cars Land, with all the rides and special entertainment. That's a banquet event with a million dollar price tag if Boeing had wanted to do the same thing for 500 of their employees!

But it's quite obvious that the Mommy Bloggers end of the bargain is to deliver... a few dozen page views on their cutesy mommy blog as they take a few days out from commenting about organic laundry detergent?

The treatment they are getting is the same type of thing once reserved for the chief travel writers from the LA Times, Fodors, Time and Conde Naste, before those paper-based industries slid into oblivion a few years ago. But the LA Times once had a readership in the millions, and Time was in the tens of millions. Mommy bloggers count their viewership by the dozen.

It's just such a weird thing to see Disney do. Or any company do really. I guess it's part of this brave new world where the old paper dinosaurs are dying, TV is struggling and fractured into 500 channels, and so companies try to find new ways to reach consumers reliably. But the Social Media Moms Conference in its current lavish format isn't it.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Until the last decade, TDR was a dirty little secret that TWDC's P&R Division worked very hard to keep hidden.

I have an issue of the Disney magazine from 2001 that mentions the opening of Tokyo DisneySea. A little blurb in the corner of a page with one piece concept art. Contrast that with the multi-page, front cover spread they did for DCA the same year.

Disney had it easy though in the 90s. Back then TDR was just one park that didn't even have Hunny Hunt. Then the 2000s came and the resort grew just as internet use did and there was no stopping word (and pictures and video) from spreading about how great the place was.

 

[TP2000]

So... Social Media Moms. My new friend Fadra who is at the conference at Disneyland this weekend (and was linked to earlier in the thread) apparently gets lots of free stuff from other companies so she can "review" them and put up review videos on her mommy blog from suburban Baltimore.

Here's one where Chevrolet gave her use of a new Impala for the weekend and sent her and the family to Hershey Park in Hershey, Pennsylvania "compliments of Chevy". That's a weekend worth at least a couple thousand bucks. And all she has to do is review the car and "influence" other moms to go visit their friendly Chevrolet dealer to see if there might be a new Impala in their life.

WARNING FOR CAR BUFFS OR ANYONE WITH A 'Y' CHROMOSOME: Fadra does her full review of this car after a weekend of driving, but never once mentions the words "engine", "transmission", "horsepower", "torque" or "brakes" and never utters anything about "displacement", "drivetrain", "warranty" or any numbers or stats describing anything. She loves to push the buttons though, but never thought to look under the hood.



She does seem like a nice woman and a very good mother, but...

After seven months on YouTube and endless links from her blog, this review video she did for Chevrolet has 59 views. Fifty Nine. That's a five followed immediately by a nine. It's not just Disney doing this, it's apparently something all big American companies are doing. It makes me not want to buy stock in GM or Disney if this is how they are spending their marketing dollars and our nation's resources. 59 views. Scary stuff!

 

[asianway]

So... Social Media Moms. My new friend Fadra who is at the conference at Disneyland this weekend apparently gets lots of free stuff from other companies so she can "review" them and put up review videos on her mommy blog from suburban Baltimore.

Here's one where Chevrolet gave her use of a new Impala for the weekend and sent her and the family to Hershey Park in Hershey, Pennsylvania "compliments of Chevy". That's a weekend worth at least a couple thousand bucks. And all she has to do is review the car and "influence" other moms to go visit their friendly Chevrolet dealer to see if there might be a new Impala in their life.



She does seem like a nice woman and a very good mother, but...

After seven months on YouTube and endless links from her blog, this review video she did for Chevrolet has 59 views. Fifty Nine. That's a five followed immediately by a nine. It's not just Disney doing this, it's apparently something all big American companies are doing. It makes me not want to buy stock in GM or Disney if this is how they are spending their marketing dollars and our nation's resources. 59 views. Scary stuff!

No amount of placement could ever get me to buy that gogo Applesauce squeeze s*** they were hawking in Toontown. That stuff is disgusting

 

[WDW1974]

Yeah, that's exactly it. To be clear, I don't fault these women for taking Disney up on their offer of a fabulous 4 day weekend for their families at Disneyland with all the free perks and bells and whistles and cocktails. What loving mother wouldn't jump at that chance for their family?

No, and let me be clear: I don't blame these women for taking what Disney is giving them either. I would take it. Now, it wouldn't come close to beginning to buy me off, but I'd take the freebies. Who wouldn't?

Heck, they had a private catered dinner in Toontown and private breakfast in Cars Land, with all the rides and special entertainment. That's a banquet event with a million dollar price tag if Boeing had wanted to do the same thing for 500 of their employees!

But it's quite obvious that the Mommy Bloggers end of the bargain is to deliver... a few dozen page views on their cutesy mommy blog as they take a few days out from commenting about organic laundry detergent?

I have been to private dinners like that (both on Disney and on other companies) and those events absolutely are usually seven figures to start.

The question here is what exactly are these Mommy Bloggers delivering? I've asked people in Disney and you never get a straight answer because they don't have one. They've just decided they are important because their 'social media experts' (in whose best interest it would be to exaggerate the importance of these people) have been preaching it for years now. It's like a boulder rolling downhill at this point. Only a management change at the top will be able to trickle down and change this strategy.

The treatment they are getting is the same type of thing once reserved for the chief travel writers from the LA Times, Fodors, Time and Conde Naste, before those paper-based industries slid into oblivion a few years ago. But the LA Times once had a readership in the millions, and Time was in the tens of millions. Mommy bloggers count their viewership by the dozen.

The L.A. Times, Fodors, Conde Naste etc ... all still have readership numbers that dwarf the most prolific of Mommy Bloggers AND, more importantly, they reach a far wider audience (demo speaking).

But they also aren't as easily bought off (although they all can be ... look at Brooks Barnes at the NYT) and it is always a two-way street. Mommies are just easier!

It's just such a weird thing to see Disney do. Or any company do really. I guess it's part of this brave new world where the old paper dinosaurs are dying and companies try to find new ways to reach consumers reliably. But the Social Media Moms Conference in its current lavish format isn't it.

That much is for certain.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Thanks, but I don't want to watch anything I intend to experience. It blows the fun.

But, that said, it sounds like Buzz Lightyear type AAs is what we are getting and those are not overly advanced, let alone cutting edge etc. ... The fact they may be better than the mannikins with motion that we had in the old dark ride doesn't do very much for me.

Understood completely. And you're not wrong that these figures aren't anything advanced or cutting edge (they're nothing compared to what fake insiders were spouting). They're a mixture of relatively basic moving figures (though substantially above the original ride's, i might even classify them as lesser animatronics in fact more than the moving figures from the original) and rear projected faces (which again for what it's worth appear to look surprisingly good as far as projections go, IMO the faces are considerably better looking than Buzz). I'm just saying that they're certainly not static and their range of motion is at least substantially better than the original Snow White figures.

How you feel about them depends on what you're expecting. If you're expecting motionless statues or even the most basic moving figures seen in the original ride, these are going to feel like a somewhat substantial upgrade and you may even be pleasantly surprised (IMO anyways, others may feel differently and may not enjoy the projected faces at all, i'm still a bigger fan of completely physical AA's). But anyone going into this ride with a decent grasp on what makes an animatronic impressive will know that they don't touch a (fully functioning) yeti, POTC auctioneer, or even Ursula figure. You are going to be let down if you do expect cutting edge.

If I HAD to make a comparison, i'd probably put these figures around the level of some of the less articulated POTC figures (or other secondary and tertiary AA figures in classic Disney E Tickets). Not anything close to the auctioneer or Jack Sparrow but I suppose similar to the more basic moving pirate figures (and again considerably better motion than many classic Fantasyland dark rides except for Hunny Hunt). There's a Grumpy figure pulling a rope whose motion and pose actually reminds me a lot of the pirate dunking the mayor in the well for instance.

The biggest problems with this ride are not inherently the quality of the ride itself (though that has some relevance considering it was value engineered), but rather the time and budget it has plowed through. On its own, had it been constructed within a reasonable timeframe and budget relative to what the final product is (and not been hyped as more than it is), it could have been a nice and loved addition to Fantasyland. Too bad the time and budget hurt things, along with not actually ADDING any new rides but just replacing them (and filling their previous spaces with meet and greets).

 

[WDW1974]

So... Social Media Moms. My new friend Fadra who is at the conference at Disneyland this weekend apparently gets lots of free stuff from other companies so she can "review" them and put up review videos on her mommy blog from suburban Baltimore.

Here's one where Chevrolet gave her use of a new Impala for the weekend and sent her and the family to Hershey Park in Hershey, Pennsylvania "compliments of Chevy". That's a weekend worth at least a couple thousand bucks. And all she has to do is review the car and "influence" other moms to go visit their friendly Chevrolet dealer to see if there might be a new Impala in their life.



She does seem like a nice woman and a very good mother, but...

After seven months on YouTube and endless links from her blog, this review video she did for Chevrolet has 59 views. Fifty Nine. That's a five followed immediately by a nine. It's not just Disney doing this, it's apparently something all big American companies are doing. It makes me not want to buy stock in GM or Disney if this is how they are spending their marketing dollars and our nation's resources. 59 views. Scary stuff!

No, it isn't all Disney. GM is big on it.

One reason I left LP.com was my 'exposing' a blogger who was openly taking a free trip (actually a long car drive followed by a DCL cruise followed by a drive to DLR) courtesy of TWDC and Buick and once I used the words 'child' and 'exploitation' (because that was what was happening) all hell broke loose.

And that's why while it may be fun to show individual examples like you did, I'd prefer to stick to the big picture about what these companies are doing, what they believe they are gaining and why this is a go-to deal for so many of them. The amount of money that corps are spending whoring to insignificant bloggers is staggering.

 

[CDavid]

Meanwhile, at the Social Media Moms Conference in Anaheim...



Come on gang, let's get the little lady to 20 page views!

Out of the more than 70 page views she has now, I'm sort of curious just how many came directly from this thread...which speaks volumes, but I doubt anyone in 'social media' is listening.

 

[Sped2424]

People keep saying Spaceship earth, but it's just not true. Yes, you can walk around the entrance and exit, but the entirety of the space that the ride takes up is how far the leg supports extend. You can't walk around all of those unless you are cast.

You circle the entire thing in a monorail, point blank the attraction is viewable from every angle.

 

[themarchhare]

Oh yeah. I remember all of that drama going down late last year. Unfortunately I didn't get to visit last year but I hope to soon. I also noticed a drop in quality (especially in the entertainment department) since the change in ownership but my optimism returned with the opening of verbolten! I absolutely love that ride and the backstory. Hopefully any future attractions will be as good as that one.

Verbolten is a fantastic addition (truly a great coaster), but the downward trend is continuing at this point. They're re-theming the BEAUTIFUL Banbury Cross area of the park into this Austin Powers-like tragedy for their new show (that doesn't look very promising either).

Hopefully Howl-o-Scream isn't a total mess this year.

 

[TP2000]

Out of the more than 70 page views she has now, I'm sort of curious just how many came directly from this thread...which speaks volumes, but I doubt anyone in 'social media' is listening.

When I first linked to that video earlier this afternoon she had 8 views. Eight. I bet about 50 of those views came from us here this afternoon. Her Chevy Impala review I linked had 59 views after being online since September, 2013.

Her page views will rise quickly thanks to us, because after just four days this little thread alone has over 50,000 views. And weekends are generally slow around here.

 

[TP2000]

The amount of money that corps are spending whoring to insignificant bloggers is staggering.

And until this weekend I had no idea! Last year's blogger reception at the California Grill was hilarious to watch, but it just seemed very minor from a money and resources perspective. But there is obviously a lot more to it than that.

Thanks for the eye opener and exposure to this new facet of corporate marketing. It's kind of sickening.

 

[flynnibus]

Am I supposed to be excited by the alleged AA's in the new kiddie coaster? I haven't looked at any video, but if I am correct (and if I am not, I am sure I will be corrected quickly) they will be using Buzz Lightyear type projection technology. And this is somehow viewed as an improvement on Walt Era AAs? Please, explain how. Excuse me, because I'm not feeling it. It feels to me like a step backward.

Show effects should be gauged by their effectivness - not 'how'. The projection effects can do so much more than an articulated figure. As long as the lighting is correct, the projection stuff is extremely good looking. I'll take the best looking effect please... not the one with most nostalgia behind it.

 

[BrianLo]

As to ranking FJ, that's just a subjective thing. It's a favorite of mine, but not top five. But I realize it is the cutting edge bar of what can be done today (at least leaving out Mystic Manor, which I haven't experienced yet).

My top five (really top 12 or so) is way too fluid, but when pressed with ranking it recently it contained both Forbidden journey and Mystic manor (along with JTTCOE, Splash Mountain and RSR). I'm indifferent on the screens in my opinion... but projection mapping really is something to behold and likely not something that will be available in your living room anytime soon.

 

[flynnibus]

At 565 sq ft, the Art of Animation Family Suite is larger:

Larger, yet the Cabana Bay room has QUEEN size beds in both the suites and standard rooms... yet the the AoA room only has 1 queen, and doubles... and the standard room still has doubles, not queens.

Disney's lack of queen size beds is one of their ridiculous product differenators that basically just makes them look bad against everyone.

 

[BrianLo]

Thanks, but I don't want to watch anything I intend to experience. It blows the fun.

But, that said, it sounds like Buzz Lightyear type AAs is what we are getting and those are not overly advanced, let alone cutting edge etc. ... The fact they may be better than the mannikins with motion that we had in the old dark ride doesn't do very much for me.

Totally understand not watching the video... but considering many people have now chosen to watch the video, I'd withhold stating your opinion until you see them. Isn't that akin to stating the Magic Kingdom is the best park in the world, yet having never vacationed outside of WDW... yet alone Florida?

The general consensus seems to be that these are better than what we were expecting. Also the projections are much improved over buzz (perhaps in part due to lighting?). But still, best to keep expectations low and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I know I am.

I also really hope all the Walt Era mannequins are replaced in Anaheim, as seems to have been somewhat the plan. These are definitely superior.

 

[Gabe1]

Omg that video!

]

Watch! You will see the same people doing the same thing on May 2 when they are invited to media blitz for the ribbon cutting of Dwarf.

I was in the MK on April 10th, the 50th Anniversary of Small World. It was held in the Hub at the Partners Statue where you have all these paths leading upto the statue and entertainment CMs singing. I would have enjoyed being able to see it while they sang but they had all the paths blocked off and only the chosen media was allowed in to view and tape. I tried to peer trough the trees to get a peek but it was worthless. We moved on. It is getting annoying that these events are not for the guests but solely for social media.

Small World Ceremony for social media invited guests.

 

[WDW1974]

When I first linked to that video earlier this afternoon she had 8 views. Eight. I bet about 50 of those views came from us here this afternoon. Her Chevy Impala review I linked had 59 views after being online since September, 2013.

Her page views will rise quickly thanks to us, because after just four days this little thread alone has over 50,000 views. And weekends are generally slow around here.

It absolutely makes you wonder if there is any accountability by the folks in Disney Social Media whatsoever. If Dr. Blondie, Crazy Gary, Bland Tommy and Co ever get called in (or actually, Leanne J., who they report to) and asked to explain why Blogger 456 is so important that she and her family of five get flown from Omaha to Anaheim for five days at the DLH.

It also makes you wonder, seriously, why they haven't come to someone like ... well, me and simply offered a consulting contract that requires me to not post a damn thing unless they ask. They'd rather sit back and see what kind of damage I can do (and 75% of my stuff never comes close to being posted here) when I'd love to be part of the solution. And they know all about me ... some on quite a personal level. I have no idea why @ParentsOf4 hasn't been pulled off this site and into a contract of his own as he presents everything with cold, hard numbers and, as far as I know, Georgie K doesn't have personal animus toward him (maybe Meg can't stand him or his wife insulted Phil Holmes once about his teeth?) I do chalk it all up to arrogance, ignorance and petulance.

And until this weekend I had no idea! Last year's blogger reception at the California Grill was hilarious to watch, but it just seemed very minor from a money and resources perspective. But there is obviously a lot more to it than that.

Thanks for the eye opener and exposure to this new facet of corporate marketing. It's kind of sickening.

Quite welcome. ... Yeah, those little Blog Whorefests are nothing. They invite a small amount of local defectives and spend very little on them (the Grill meet was probably pricey by those standards, most are more like a free movie with a piece of crap swag thrown in) ... the next thing to watch will be Disney's media event for summer/Dwarfs coaster/new parade/DVC expansion that is happening in three weeks. That type of event will draw folks from all over the world and is easily an eight-figure spend.

 

[WDW1974]

Show effects should be gauged by their effectivness - not 'how'. The projection effects can do so much more than an articulated figure. As long as the lighting is correct, the projection stuff is extremely good looking. I'll take the best looking effect please... not the one with most nostalgia behind it.

Absolutely agree. And I withhold all judgment until I ride. That said, the tech isn't cutting edge, which was what my point was. No, it doesn't have to be if it works and I don't look and say 'Wow, that looks cheap!'

 

[WDW1974]

My top five (really top 12 or so) is way too fluid, but when pressed with ranking it recently it contained both Forbidden journey and Mystic manor (along with JTTCOE, Splash Mountain and RSR). I'm indifferent on the screens in my opinion... but projection mapping really is something to behold and likely not something that will be available in your living room anytime soon.

I have a Top 20 ... and even that morphs. I doubt that TDL's BTMRR would be in it most of the time. But if I just came back from Tokyo, it may well be. I don't even have a No. 1 really.

My favorites of all-time were Mansion (MK) and Imagination 1.0 and AA (both EPCOT) and PoC (DL) for many years ... but then I traveled more internationally and UNI and then IOA opened and I traveled more etc.

So, while some people might be able to pull up a favorite or a list easily, I can't.

I could probably do a Top 5 at every park, but comparing is tough. I love Peter Pan's Flight at DLP, Forbidden Journey at IOA and Manta at SWO, but I have a hard time placing them all in the same list.