Disney Addiction: Peyote in the Pixie Dust

Yesterday, I had a bit of fun with Marty Sklar's ten commandments for doing business like Disney. In fact, I've been playing fast and loose with commandments for quite awhile, and I don't mean just the Disney ones.

Disney is awash not only with commandments but also core business concepts that it provides through the Disney Institute via workshops and other executive programs. (A one-day workshop held at a Disneyland or Disney World resort costs about $500.) Bruce Jones, Programming Director for the Disney Institute, touches upon a few of those concepts in "Lessons from a Theme Park", an article he wrote today for the Singapore-based BusinessTimes.

His best example is how retail stores can make use of Disney's 'secondary guest' strategy. A retailer knows a child isn't going to spend money in the store, but catering to the child delights the person with the money, namely, the child's parent. Win over the child to conquer the parent. (And tomorrow, the planet!)

You see it in Disney theme parks all the time. Cast members are told to 'make it a magical day' for children because parents want to believe their money bought that magic for their children: "yeah, Junior, Mickey gave you a high-five, but I paid for it". It's a win-win for everyone.

And once addicted to the magic, they always come back.

Warning: BusinessTimes is one of those late-to-the-dance Internet concerns that hope to monetize their content through subscription fees. (That ship sailed long ago and sank.) BusinessTimes, however, surprised me with a Jekyll 'n Hide approach: they allow anyone to access their content for free during certain times of the day, then later lock it up unless you bought a subscription. Apparently, no one complains about it in Singapore because they're afraid of being caned. I only mention it in case you follow the link and wonder why I'm giving hullabaloo to a subscriber-only site.