Opinion: CMO World Tour interview with Federico Gonzalez of Disneyland Paris

Brands need to be wary of always targeting the early adopters, warns Disney’s European marketing boss for theme parks and cruise ships.

Federico Gonzalez, senior vice-president of marketing and sales at Disneyland Paris, warns that sometimes it’s worth stepping back and considering the other 95 per cent of the population.

“Sometimes I say that doesn’t work in my mind because I’m not an extremely early adopter of technology," Gonzalez says. "So maybe we need to look back to the other 95 per cent and that maybe we have something less fancy but is a bigger opportunity.”

For him the key test for digital—and all media—is its ability to create consideration.

“First, the consumer needs to consider to come with us, second they need to look for the information—active consideration, we call it—and then finally convert. And I think what happens in my experience is when I look to the different behaviours and when I’m lost in the web, I try to see whatever we do, would that be affecting my level of consideration, would that be affecting my information, would that be affecting my conversion.”

Gonzalez is in the process of becoming an “iPerson”, converting his home technology to Apple thanks to its integration, although Blackberry remains his choice of handset thanks to its email capacity.

“I still have the physical photographs of my kids in my wallet and sometimes I feel frustrated not having them because I have them in the computer but I don’t have them in an iPhone because I haven’t used the iPhone,” he says.

He admits to being a bit behind his teenage children when it comes to using Facebook. “Before we arrive home from a trip, they have already downloaded their photographs and they have got comments from all their friends about their experience. I’m still a bit behind.” But he acknowledges the change digital has made to his hobby, writing.

Gonazalez has written three books about living abroad. For the first one, about managing in Sweden, which was published in 2002, he bought every published work as part of his research. But for the latest, Living and Working Abroad, published in 2010, he sought out ideas online.

“A lot of the information, a lot of the ideas were in the web, were in different communities: communities of experts, communities of experience, different ones,” he says. “And then once you publish the book it’s the same. Maybe you sent an email to friends and you create a web page and people can access your webpage and you put it in your CV, in LinkedIn…”

One key thing he’s learnt from his teenage children, who often act as a sounding board, is that consumers don’t always need an incentive.

“Sometimes with a couple of things, they say, ‘why?’ I say, ‘Obviously, I mean we should be doing this because this will create an incentive for you.’ and they say, ‘But I don’t need an incentive.’ So I discover the mindset of a generation that is different to mine,” he notes.

Frédéric Colas: How much of your budget is currently invested in digital?

Federico Gonzalez: Across Europe it would be around 15 per cent total online but to be honest I never check or give an absolute number to percentage. What I always say is we have a given number of objective in terms of awareness or in terms of conversion we need to make sure that we get to those numbers with the cost that can afford.

FC: What percentage of sales come through online?

FG: Today we sell around 45% across Europe. Forty-two per cent of our business is direct and around half of it is via the web, half of it is via phone people who call. Now many of them they have seen the telephone number in the web but they prefer a personal call and that’s what we look to [provide], we think is extremely important.

FC: Can you identify a moment when you realised that digital was changing marketing?

FG: I don’t recall exactly when that happened but it is the day you find yourself being influenced by the opinion of someone you don’t know. I think I was planning a trip and was reading the opinion of someone about a hotel and actually it influenced me and I didn’t considered that hotel following the sort of the experience of that person.

I didn’t know the person, I had never been to that community and I didn’t have any reference for that community that I would follow or this is someone I trust. I think that was the day when I realized this is happening today with my business all over so I better get to know who is there and what are they saying and how can I influence it.

FC: Do you monitor what is being said about Disneyland Paris?

FG: We work with good companies to monitor that. We try to monitor what is being said and what is being discussed, we do it with Paris and we do it with all the Disney destinations and we try to monitor both what is good and what is negative and try to understand if its negative why and if it’s good, what [more] can we do.

FC: What have you learnt from looking at these comments?

FG: Sometimes in the normal reports you would get comments but you don’t get the measure of the emotional implications of those comments. I think what those reports allow you to see is really how painful or how grateful the different comments are and then the [power they have] to create or to destroy your brand pretty quickly.

FC: What are the biggest opportunities where digital can help you deliver? Which would they be?

FG: Among those consumers who are in a very early phase of consideration [digital] is [powerful] really visualising, convincing, and evangelising to them about the beauty of having that experience, lifetime experience of Disney.

…That is for those consumers who are in an early consideration and that both accelerate the consideration.

And the second [opportunity] is on the conversion of those who have definite intention to visit, they want to materialise and then how you help them and

…the third and this is the most important one is not to bother each of these [groups] with message that is not relevant, because I think the point is and is today still one of the big issues is the moment you are considering a Disney experience with your family, I shouldn’t bother you at that moment with offers.

I shouldn’t bother you about the conversion it is too early and at the same time when you are really convinced of coming to Disney and you are going to make it, I shouldn’t bother you again with information that is no longer relevant you, you know it already. So it is how can we get those two messages and really segmented to the different people in different states of needs.

FC: Recent research showed that both in the US and in France Disneyland is the second-most checked in place after Chicago Airport in the US and after Paris Airport in France. What does that mean for the brand?

FG: This is an experience that is born to be shared and is born to be shared with the people who are with you and you [also] want to share it with others so that they know you came to Disney… And it can be shared in real time, right when you are in the park, not just when you are back home.

If I receive two or three messages from someone who is at Disneyland at this moment, this will increase my active level of consideration. In other words, I will actively look for information about going to Disneyland Paris as soon as possible. The opportunity is huge and we need to do everything we can to enable it and to foster it. Actually, the countries that are performing the best are the countries where the level of active consideration is the highest.

FC: We talked about the power of recommendation, which is really important for your business. Facebook makes it easy to share with your friends. Do you think that you are on the way to tap the full potential of Facebook?

FG: I would say minus five. We are one of the brands that is most liked in Facebook but the point is: do we really understand what likeability is about? Do we really understand how can you transform that likeability? So I think we are still in a very early stage of trying to understand what to do, not only to make business out of it but really to respect the honest approach from a consumer when they say something.

I was trying to understand our fans and I checked with my daughter and she said, yeah I’m a fan of this thing. So I said, “What does it mean to you?” I saw she was not an engaged fan. If I would at that moment send a message that it is extremely hard selling, I would be pissing her off. I think we need a lot of consumer research and a lot of consumer understanding to really be respectful with what is happening rather than just trying to leverage it.

For additional content from this conversation visit cmoworldtour.com and wfanet.org, where you can also propose questions for future guests and find other CMO World Tour content.