How do Sponsorships within the park work? Does Disney seek a potential sponsor or does a company seek out Disney? Are the decline of ride and attraction sponsors a result of Disney not pushing that initiative anymore? Economy? Obviously this is large subject. Epcot has failed in it's experiment to acquire sponsors. But why? And are they seeking new sponsors? A lot more questions than answers but I've always been fascinated with the Sponsor a ride/Fund a project idea and how it came to be and why it appears to be disappearing.
On a somewhat related line of questioning; How much leverage does a company have in getting an attraction themed to their specifications? Most recent example being the re-themed Test Track or Disney pulling TCM to reimagine the Great Movie Ride. Anyone here well-versed on this topic?
Generally speaking, Disney pitches possible sponsorship opportunities to the sponsors. Small point to start, but I wouldn't cite EPCOT as "failed" experiment in corporate sponsorship- the park would probably never have gotten built in the first place but for corporate and national funds made available to Disney through these agreements. During the runup to EPCOT getting built, Card Walker tirelessly flew around the country to meet with various corporate boards to pitch how participation in the permanent world's fair of EPCOT would be beneficial to their corporate image and raise their prestige. There are exceptions, however; United Technologies proactively sought out Disney to sponsor the Living Seas, largely due to the enormous enthusiasm of its chairman at the time, Harry Gray.
Much of the template for Epcot model of sponsorship and company involvement evolved out of Disney's past work as a studio-for-hire in putting together pavilions and shows for the World's Fair. In those examples, it was Ford, for instance, that contracted with Disney to build the Magic Skyway.
The degree to which a company is involved in the sponsored attraction varies quite a bit, but Disney has historically been very conscientious about seeing to it that their sponsors are happy with the finished product. I would imagine that a lot of the details about the extent to which a sponsorship will be overt are settled up front, ie. the size of signage whether, how, and when a sponsors name is said aloud at some point in the attraction. In some cases, Disney has worked directly with the company to ensure that their sponsor is satisfied with the finished product. For example, when Disney was working on both the Carousel of Progress and Horizons, General Electric sent one of their communications executives, Ned Landon, to oversee Disney's work and ensure it would be up to par. Landon even had an office at the WED's Burbank offices during some of this time. More recently, Disney worked directly with the team at General Motors that handles the company's auto show presentations on the Test Track re-do to better ensure that the attraction served the company's purposes. As I understand it, the attraction was an actual collaboration between Disney and Chevy's in-house car show design team.
As for why we've seen less sponsorship over the years, the biggest reason is the economic slowdown of the mid-'00s. Disney ride sponsorship was often less about brand exposure and more about prestige and vanity projects. For example, it was unlikely that anyone riding Horizons would be coming away with a desire to purchase a particular GE product. The Living Seas was an even more baffling example because United Technologies isn't even a consumer brand!
Until we get to another period of corporate excess like the 1980s, where many companies had more money than they knew what to do with, we're unlikely to see a return to that level of over sponsorship, though we may see a return to more attractions that are thinly-veiled commercials for consumer products, like the current Test Track and the old Dreamflight ride. Disney is certainly continuing to seek out new sponsors, though- GM's involvement in the upcoming Tron project (as they are in Shanghai) and the fairly recent Great Movie Ride/AMC collaboration show that Disney certainly hasn't given up on this practice.
