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May 20, 2008
Closing a Disney community
Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom is a virtual representation of the real-life Disneyland theme park. It's also an online community for evangelists of Disneyland.
More than a million avatars have been created at VMK. By almost any standard, it's a popular site.
But Disney plans to shutter VMK tomorrow night, and that's caused consternation in paradise. Petitions have been signed, protest sites have been created. VMK citizens wonder why Disney would want to close something that solidifies and extends their loyalty.
Here's one reason: Disney envisioned VMK as an 18-month promotion, not a long-term loyalty effort.
The closing of VMK illustrates a schism prevalent today at many companies, especially larger ones: the battle between short-term campaigns vs. long-term evangelism.
Campaign thinking is a byproduct of the last 25 years of business school education. The formula has been to create a short-term project using established metrics, execute, then start over with a new idea. Move the needle quickly.
The formula for evangelism thinking is: Create a project where the community of users become part of the process and most importantly, are considered a tangible asset. The needle may not move as fast because the investment is for the long term, but it's less likely to have wild, up-and-down swings.
The backstory to the closing of VMK, as the WSJ alludes to it, is that entry to this community is free whereas other Disney online properties are fee-based. VMK wasn't designed to charge admission. Any Web 2.0 company will tell you that's campaign thinking, too.
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Testify! Great post that strikes directly at the pain many of us see when great narratives like this are tossed into the garbage instead of the recycle bin.
Amen! Especially your last statement, regarding campaign thinking. Web 2.0 that build loyalty, whether long-term or short-term is a valuable part of any loyalty campaign. Great take.
Maria :-)
This reminds me of one of my favorite blog posts. http://brainsonfire.com/blog/2008/03/14/campaigns-vs-movements-revisited/
I printed this and have it hanging by my desk at work for inspiration. Should maybe send this to Disney...
I'm curious to hear anyone's alternate scenarios for VMK given the situation Disney finds themselves in. Should they charge for it? Invest in integrating it into Club Penguin? Obviously they have a very invested, passionate community that many companies would love.
Great blog! Thanks for your time.
Carl
Thank you for your commentary!! There are several petitions, however, I would like to point out the two primary ones have 30,000 in combined signatures to date.
The Save VMK Petition sites are:
savevmk.com
savevmktoday.com
Thank you!
VMK Blog
www.vmkblog.com
Perhaps they could let VMK be run by the community itself and not Disney. This would be a great way to let them feel that are part of the Brand Experience and to foster even more Brand advocacy (more so than cutting all these people loose when they close it).
Mike Ashworth
Marketing Consultant
Brighton and Hove, Sussex, UK
We agree with the person above - maybe even set up a small fee as it may anger some but it would be better than closing the entire community
Unbelievable that Disney is willing to, metaphorically speaking, piss away a million loyal buyers, just because they're not getting their requisite $4.99 or $9.99 a month? Loyalty can never be "bought," but apparently Disney thinks in can be sold.
This is a huge opportunity for Disney to build future loyalty and long-term satisfaction for a substantial number of people.
Target did the same thing with a number of microsites.
Get Into The Game (a Target site dedicated to providing gamers news, reviews, discounts, custom content and release info) was killed close to its peak, which was 1MM unique visitors per month. It was killed because, I was told, Target's new strategy was to keep all site content within the Target.com wrapper and construct. The old Get Into The Game strategy had been to design a lightly Target-branded site to present younger gamers and their Moms solid game reviews and unique content that the gamers could trust.
There were a number of less successful sites that were killed as well. But I've never understood why they did away with the couple of sites that were still highly successful. Such a loss when a company decides to pick corporate strategy over consumer loyalty.
i have yet to understand why no one is talking about an implied contract here. remember all those pins and movies people bought with all those disney codes on them. people were buying them specifially for vmk. that is not an opinion but a fact. like most people our family bought them for the entertainment value of vmk so our family could have more things to trade. in selling those movies and pins with the codes on them it led us to believe that vmk was not going to be closing any time soon. you see to me it should be illegal to sell things like they did knowing that they were closing vmk. disney should be making a real effort to doing something about this before a huge lawsuit is filed against them. believe me lawyers are looking ino this very frantically. win or lose disney will spend million defending there big lie and could save that money by reopening vmk. and it would not bother us if they charged. implied contract is a serious thing.there is a thought of disney scammed many parents out of thousands and thousands of dollars using vmk as there marketing tool. boycotting disney would send a long and hard message to them that we the consuemers have the power. peace all
I am 1 of those people who loves vmk and is really heartbroken and angry about them closing vmk's gates already. I thought people should know about what other and myself are doing because they closed VMK. Some of us are protesting by not going near any of the other disney stuff at all like, the television channels and games and movies and stuff like that. I hope more people try it!!
OH MY GOD!!why?? everyone loved it!! on the day vmk was closing i cryed!! it felt like i was there and my friends felt closer then you think!!
OH MY GOD!!why?? everyone loved it!! on the day vmk was closing i cryed!! it felt like i was there and my friends felt closer then you think!!
OH MY GOD!!why?? everyone loved it!! on the day vmk was closing i cryed!! it felt like i was there and my friends felt closer then you think!!
I'll start off with a question, Why? Why did VMK have to go? Vmk closing is like closing many many friendships, jobs, and hobbies. Also you might of thought vmk just was a game that kids are just wasteing their time on, but its not. Vmk tought me many things. Like spelling errors, opportunity cost, how so spend my money wiesly, room decorating, ost importantly to be responsible. I have many more things but it just fits in four words, I LOVED THAT GAME! at first when i found out about vmk i thought it was just a online game, bu the more i got on it i relized that it was amazing and educational. So you might thing this is nuts but Vmk was my pal, my friend, my friend that i thoguht would never leave me, I thought it would be there right by my side insted in my memories. Before i go i just ahve one question to you all who shut Vmk down, did u do the right thing? The right thing crushing friendships, jobs, and many more thins. So if your reading this people who shut it down just ask yourself on thing, did i do the right thing?
So what else is new??? I stopped buying into the whole Disney ripoff years ago. shuttering the vmk is yet another prime example of disney's declining trust in the marketlace. Walt's turning over in his grave on this one!!!
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