A year of magic and insights at Disneyland Paris

 

I've been rekindling with an interest in theme parks and roller coasters in the past year, which started as I went to Disneyland Paris and then upgraded to an Infinity Annual Pass.

The whole thing began with an ad. The signs I spotted as I was leaving the park exhausted at nearly midnight with my sister-in-law, niece and nephew said something like: "remember you can deduce the cost of your day ticket towards the purchase of an annual pass!"

I'll happily share more details of that story over coffee for those interested, including the rabbit hole of a purchase funnel I went on, but suffice to say I was back there the following week with my other nieces and a friend I roped in for the occasion (thank you James!).

I managed to go 14 times in total. I took all my nieces, nephew, and godson on separate occasions. I attended the special Halloween Party night with my girlfriend and nieces (we dressed up as minions).

I also wandered there by myself. I used the park as an occasional office to work from. I wrote the initial notes for this post last week, sitting outdoors at Colonel Hathi's Pizza Outpost, looking out on Adventureland's greenery.

Visiting with others, we tended to focus on going on as many rides as possible, eating home made sandwiches in the queues, and small occasional stops for snacks or another meal, to briefly check out a parade, or some character.

Wandering by myself I spent time contemplating the design, organisation, huge range of merchandising in shops, food on offer, and shows.

My pass expired last week so I've been reflecting on the whole experience.

A massive attraction

As much as I sometimes like to think I'm different, I get pulled in the same as everyone.

Paris is the most visited city in the world, and Disneyland Paris is the most visited tourist attraction in Europe, and in France. The Louvre is the second most visited spot after Sleeping Beauty's Castle: 7.8 vs. 9.9 Million visitors in 2022.

I don't know what their maximum capacity is these days, but on average that represents 27,205 visitors a day, welcomed and looked after by approximately 16,000 cast members. That might be across both parks (Disneyland and Disney Studios), which together have about 15 million visitors per year, along with Disney Village including seven hotels, restaurants, more shops, and a direct train line from Paris.

As they celebrated their 30th anniversary, Disneyland Paris announced a record setting $2.6 billion revenue last year, and $52 million in operating profit. They also opened a brand new theme area in Disney Studios Park bringing in new people: Marvel Avengers Campus. The area includes several food options, super heroes wandering around, shows, a new Spider-man ride and the sadly missed Aerosmith Rock N'Roller Coaster rethemed as Avengers Assemble Flight Force.

To think it's just one Disneyland resort in the world, and not the biggest, my mind boggles. The operation is massive: Disney Parks global attendance in 2022 was over 115 million visitors.

Being there is awesome, and I can't help but think of the crowds there as a kind of pilgrimage. Generations rekindling with and handing over their love for these worlds and characters to new ones. Older people get to feel years melting away (as long they're not looking at crowds or price tags too closely), while the young ones get to see beloved figures "for real." Experiencing this with children, and of different age groups as I've been lucky to have done is… well, not priceless, but precious nonetheless.

The cost of enchantment

Last year's results exceeded those of 2018 or 2019, though expectedly long time closing during the pandemic seem to have had various effects, such as ticket prices increasing several times, and the end of the free timed fast lane system, replaced by a paid for one, via the dedicated app.

Just because I like stating the obvious, it's worth underlining this kind of magic is not for everyone. That was the case prior to COVID of course. For an illustration of life beyond the gates of the Magic Kingdom I highly recommend the excellent 2017 film The Florida Project.

Since I got my annual pass I discovered a Byzantine and complex booking system that made what was meant to be a pass I could use every day of the year into a scheduling headache. An influencer even organised a playful protest for annual pass holders.

More recently, DLP employees have been on strike, demanding monthly wage increases and improved working conditions, some employees saying they can no longer make ends meet. While I'm at it and in the midst of the writers and actors strike in Hollywood, Disney announced a new task force to study AI (and cut costs most sources say).

An average DLP undated day ticket price starts at approximately $124.96. If you plan ahead with dated tickets it can be less. It's still at least twice the cost of other nearby theme parks, many of whom have been investing in amazing new rides over the years (Parc Astérix' new area and coaster Toutatis is phenomenal, for example).

They recently changed the annual pass system and increased the prices about 30% while removing a number of benefits. I have a few more weeks to ponder but I'm pretty sure I've had enough for now. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm unlikely to renew (and so many other theme parks to go explore).

Still, as cynical as I might be tempted to be, it is fascinating place to check out up close for a brand strategist. People will save up and spend over and above to be part of the Disney brand experience and share it with their friends and loved ones. Little (or none) of it is rational. The meltdowns I've seen both adults and children have in the park are totally emotional.

By the way among all the merchandising, I've seen many groups and families wear their own printed "2023 Disneyland Paris family name vacation" t-shirts - so many I'm surprised Disney doesn't offer this online as a matter of fact when you book your tickets ahead of time.

Same thoughts go to "Disneybounding," the practice of dressing in colour schemes and outfits reminiscent of official characters but not going against the ban on adults wearing costumes (from the Disneybound blog). Perhaps they don't want to encourage it though.

The actual magic

In case you're not familiar, the division in charge of the theme parks is called Disney Imagineering, blending engineering, design, technology, and Disney storytelling.

Looking at the design of the theme park, I'm blown away by the genius and planning behind the landscape architecture making the place feel a lot larger and wondrous than it is, the queues and ride design to get visitors in and maintaining a state of suspended disbelief.

The classic dark rides Phantom Manor and Pirates of the Caribbean are gorgeous, Big Thunder Mountain is a beautiful thrill ride for the whole family. The new Avengers Campus feels alive with its unscheduled and impromptu appearances of superheroes calling children out in the gathered informal audiences to join them.

I'm reminded of the characteristics of play I often quote from Roger Caillois' Man, Play, and Games, and how well Disneyland meets them. In particular:

• It is separate (from the routine of life), occupying its own time and space.
• It is governed by rules that suspend ordinary laws and behaviours and that must be followed by players.
• It involves make-believe that confirms for players the existence of imagined realities that may be set against 'real life'.

The magic is in suspending disbelief and letting yourself be in a state of play.

Maybe theme parks and crowds aren't your thing, maybe there's something else special, out of the ordinary, an adventure beyond the routine of life, something you could get up to with children and/or loved ones soon.

Last but not least, the actual magic is obviously down to the cast members working every day to bring Disneyland Paris to life: attendants, cleaners, servers, ride operators, actors, and many more - thank you to all the people working there day in, day out so visitors can play.

Marmite Love / Hate Discovery

 

I'm just back from visiting friends in the UK and made quite the discovery that had me go back to and reconsider Marmite and its advertising.

I thought I was clearly in the "I hate Marmite" camp, decided probably over twenty years ago. That was reinforced by years of love/hate advertising that I've always thought clever and fun.

Sure it's a divisive product, but this past weekend as my friends were telling me how they love marmite, had lovely sourdough bread, I thought well I actually haven't tasted Marmite in a very long time. Turns out I thought "hey this isn't actually bad", let me have some more, and I had more the following day too. Same for my girlfriend, she thought she was firmly in the hate camp and we both changed our minds.

My main big surprise of the past week is I actually quite like Marmite. I might even love it.

Their latest ad campaign launched in June is fun, sure, but how much room is left for people changing taste? Not so much it seems.

Our tastes change over time, if you go as far as strongly conveying the idea it's about genetic material then how can Marmite acquire new consumers, as in haters deciding to give it another go rather than simply leaving it like it's set for life... Similarly if it's a given these are the two camps, do many self professed lovers share their appreciation, or do they give up because some are just haters..?

As much as I appreciate their brand positioning and advertising, I'd say going into genetics and scanning babies is taking a step too far - unless it's all just a joke, but the video seems almost serious enough that I wonder if people find it funny or not?

Publishing videos: 100% of winners gave it a chance

 

I've been publishing podcasts on and off since 2015, mostly audio first, and mostly video streaming since 2020. Thoughts for those thinking about similar ideas.

My main Ice Cream for Everyone podcast has been on a hiatus since the pandemic; at the moment I publish these conversations with my friend James D'Souza. We call them our creative sessions.

During the first pandemic lockdowns, James was making efforts to create and share interesting video classes for his pupils. He was about to give his class an assignment about marketing a board game business, and reached out asking me to record an interview for his class.

That reminded us how much we enjoyed chatting, and given I'd just began teaching as well, we came up with the idea of answering recurring questions from his high school pupils, and my advertising communications students.

That was Teaching Tangents and we made two seasons of it before feeling like we were repeating ourselves. We wrapped the show up, and looked at what was next, and came up with what might be an unusual mix.

We really like having a frequent chat sharing what we're up to, I find them generally encouraging, inspiring, and agreed we might want to keep talking somehow.

The last show wound up partly because we didn't care to spend too much time to formalise, improve, or promote it. 

That said, the idea of being live streamed was appealing. 

We like doing it and occasionally (surprisingly, even), someone of the average 1-10 viewers per video comments and says they enjoy it too. 

I guess it's our own dance like no one's watching version of Wayne's World. 

It's just us talking and geeking about books, movies, games, personal knowledge management, note-taking, technology, music, meditation, coaching, work, play roleplaying games, etc. It's pretty random.

Yesterday we talked about the Tales from the Loop tabletop RPG, inspired by Simon Stålenhag's art, which also led to a series on Prime Video I haven't seen just yet. We also talked about note-taking apps: Logseq, Roam Research, Evernote, Obsidian.

I'm sharing this because we both hear about students' (or clients) aspirations to publish videos, or podcasts. 

Just as an example, Youtube has 2.6 billion monthly active users, and only 4.4% of them have created their own channel. Around 321,100 channels have over 100k subscribers ; around 32,300 have 1M, and only 5 over 100M (source).

The piece of advice I read most often as I was planning for my first podcast seems correct; the most important is to find something you enjoy doing even if few people see or listen to it - which is what's most likely.

It begins with making something and publishing. Keep it simple and get out there to begin with.

As the old French Lottery slogan used to say: "100% of winners gave it a chance" (100% des gagnants ont tenté leur chance).

Noticing media: Disneyland Paris par Toutatis!

I noticed this good outdoor media placement at Disneyland Paris, which kind of leads me to admit something about my arguably leisurely lifestyle.

It’s a long story involving multiple trips with my nieces and nephews last summer and over Halloween last year, but in short I have an annual pass to Disneyland Paris. So from time to time, I get out my home office, and on to the RER A train to the happiest place on Earth (or Europe/France).

Yesterday, I worked at Disney’s Starbucks for a few hours, wandered around the park, did a couple of rides, lunch and some more work at Disney Village (a burger, at the newly rebranded Royal Pub. I have thoughts about its transformation from King Ludwig’s Castle, maybe for another time).

I was heading back home when I noticed these ads in the train station, for Parc Asterix. They just launched an exciting new roller coaster (2nd of its kind in the world), Toutatis, the Celtic god invoked by Asterix and his Gaulish friends in the comics.

The theme park enthusiasts I follow on Youtube and who tried the ride for the park’s PR day are all raving about it, and I’m looking forward to trying it. That’s where you might think I should be wary of market orientation and remember I’m not the target audience, except well, sometimes I kind of am.

Some takeaways:

 Outdoor ads on the public transportation system and on your competitor’s turf might seem basic. But it is also a solid foundation, I appreciate it. Disneyland is similarly boasting a campaign for the end of the 30th anniversary (in September) all over town, however they don’t have actual news, they’ve been celebrating their 30th anniversary for like a year now. It’s partly reminding everyone Spring time is here and it’s a good to visit theme parks, and/or a response to Parc Asterix’s actual new news.

 It would have been fun to see an ad specially created for the placement by Disneyland’s train station, though possibly only of interest to adland and theme park geeks, so not necessarily worth it – and taking away from Parc Asterix’s actual main news and goal of the campaign to be single-minded about promoting their new roller coaster.

 That last point is important for the enthusiasts because the roller coasters at Disneyland Paris are nowhere as good as the ones in Parc Asterix, and I was reminded seeing these ads. Disney’s coasters are old and rough. The rebrands of Space Mountain into Star Wars, and the Rock’n’Roller Coaster reopening as part of the Avengers Campus last year were met with disappointment or even outrage by fans (and myself: altogether too dark, rough, disorienting vs. fun).

I have some time to notice and write things given I just finished a couple of client projects. I’m looking for new gigs, please keep in touch if I can help with your marketing strategy.

Occam's Razor around the fall line

 

I'm going skiing soon, and as I was planning the trip I noticed similarities with the ways I approach a strategy work project.

A few years ago, after I finished working at Energy BBDO in Chicago, I caught up with a couple of ex-colleagues for a drink and found out there were rumours about me in the office: people thought I was super wealthy because I went away on ski trips. 

I first learned to ski when I was about 9 years old in France, during "classe de neige" school trip. I loved it but that was the only time I skied. My parents didn't ski, we didn't really have enough money or interest to go on ski holidays in my teenage years. It kind of stayed on my radar far in the background, as something that would be nice to maybe do again, some day.

I ended up re-learning to ski many years later, on a holiday with one of my best friends in 2016. I got totally hooked. It's actually the first time in my life I am so invested in a physical activity, to be honest.

I realise skiing is an expensive sport, generally reserved for wealthy people, and/or people living right by the mountains. I think I do well financially, even better than many, but I don't come from a wealthy family.

After describing the hostel dorm rooms and friends' places where I tend to hang out when skiing, one of them had an aha moment and realised it wasn't so much that I was rich, but rather that I didn't have the same travel comfort requirements they had when traveling.

Part of this is certainly down to budgeting priorities. There's also the satisfaction I get from organising a trip independently, looking for the best permutations of trains, planes, and automobiles, so to speak.

I can't help researching, strategising, and optimising plans. Which I suppose is also what I do with work and clients.

Ideally, any given strategy ends up seemingly simple. It has also likely taken me a long while to gather enough information and pursue long-winded ideas to finally get to that simplest result. The best strategies even look like they should have been obvious from the beginning, except it wasn't or couldn't be seen back then.

Occam's Razor, in philosophy and as defined in Wikipedia, "is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony. [...] Popularly, the principle is sometimes inaccurately paraphrased as "The simplest explanation is usually the best one.""

When skiing, the "fall line" is the steepest, most direct way down the hill. Skis should be perpendicular to the fall line, depending on your ability level, how steep the slope is, what the general shape of the mountain is, how the snow is, and also how you're feeling like skiing at that particular moment. 

I like to think you end up sort of playing with Occam's Razor when skiing, in that you're gliding back and forth around and across the fall line, controlling your speed when turning, getting a feel for the slope and where the fall line is. Larger, broader turns allow you to control speed and slow down. Shorter, faster, narrower turns directed towards the fall line have you accelerate.

When the slope is shallow, you can easily point your skis into the fall line and go straight ahead. The steeper and narrower it becomes, the more you have to turn your skis away from the fall line to get down safely, and in the most parsimonious fashion. You need to ski on your edges, which should be sharp, kind of like Occam's idea of a razor, shaving a path down the slope, turn by turn. 

I feel there are similarities with the way I might approach a new, presumably tricky enough, strategic challenge: considering ways to navigate it that aren't immediately relevant to a direct solution. Instead, I'll take side turns that generate new understanding and perspectives, which will strengthen the outcome.

It's arguable how close this really is to Occam's Razor, which is why I mentioned playing with it. When it comes to travel plans and skiing, I'm not necessarily looking for the direct path. Depending on time and budget, I'm after a fun, interesting, maybe even long-winded route.

At the beginning of this winter, it didn't look like I'd be able to ski much. Luckily that changed. After much time optimising and scheming (and a few urgent client projects), in ten days I'll be excitedly lugging all my ski gear around from Paris, to Vars on a night bus, then a weekend in Venice with my girlfriend, on to Cortina d'Ampezzo in the Dolomites, across the Austrian border to ski around Innsbruck, a quick stop to check out St Anton am Arlsberg, and then looping back to Paris via Zurich on the train.

All that to probably brag about my trip, and say that if you enjoy the idea of a strategic thinker playing with brand challenges like they would glide around a ski slope while connecting random notions like Occam's Razor or Lateral Thinking that I ended up removing, please give me a shout, and please comment about your skiing plans or problem solving approach (and if you want to go skiing together some time, particularly if you're a little better than I am, and/or if you have access to affordable accommodation in a ski resort)!

PS: Thank you James D'Souza for the encouragements to get back to writing & James Whatley for reminding me to write about what I'm interested in.