ABOUT

The brief was to transform Disney UK’s approach to digital, refocus the marketing organisation so that digital was at the heart of it, develop a cohesive approach to our customer data and create a common digital vision across all Disney lines of business.

The first step I took was to conduct ‘digital surgeries’ across all Disney’s LoB’s collating information such as what digital marketing were they currently doing, what tools they were using, where was their ambition in the space and what did they see as their major barriers to digital success. I also spoke to key digital partners such as Google and Facebook to identify their perception of digital within our company and to see if there were any changes we could make to maximise those relationships.

I then turned this information into a proposal which I presented to Disney Executives to get their buy-in for a 12- 18 month project where we addressed three key areas:

1)Hearts & Minds; Companywide training was needed to level up digital knowledge across the organisation – it was critical that all marketeers (including the Disney Exec team themselves) could ‘talk digital’ to agencies, partners etc. I also identified that it was critical for legal, procurement and finance teams to have a better understanding of digital to give digital projects a better chance of taking off.

2)Digital Resource; It was essential to bring together some disparate digital headcount across the organisation so that we could align their working and encourage cross sharing of ideas, knowledge, learnings and importantly data. The potential of bringing together different Disney customers was not being realised, mainly due to team silos and unlocking this was transformative. There was also a big question around what digital marketing we should outsource to agencies or bring in-house.

3)Digital Platforms & Technology; A review of all digital platforms was needed to ensure that each digital consumer touchpoint had a clear purpose, worthy of the resources it used.
A review of technology was needed to ensure we had the correct tools in place to allow us to increase our use of personalisation and unlock the potential of our customer data.

Having obtained a green light to proceed from the Exec team and forming a tight working group, I embarked on an 18 month long project to champion digital transformation across the organisation:

I created a training plan using a combination of internal resource (myself and some other digital experts) and an external company to train 400+ employees. We helped employees overcome the ‘fear barrier’ many had around digital, enabling them to drive business forward.

I set up an in-house performance team to run ‘test & learn’ trial campaigns across lines of business (LoB’s) such as Disney Theatrical Productions, Disney Store, Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, Disney Home Entertainment, sharing the data of all LoB’s to drive results. The success of this team was unparalleled, driving return on investment of 50:1 in some cases. Within the 18 months this team had made over £2 million in revenue on a relatively small number of projects.

I streamlined our digital footprint to ensure that every digital touchpoint had stated objectives and demonstratable impact. This allowed us to focus more resource on fewer digital platforms and as a result raise the bar on effectiveness, consumer and brand experience.

I introduced digital hotdesking so that digital headcount across LoB’s divided their time with my team. This meant they were better able to use the combined knowledge of my team to solve their specific LoB challenges. This was so helpful and productive that a number of these individuals moved permanently into my team.

I reinvigorated our relationship with key digital platforms (Google, Facebook etc) by giving them a cohesive view of our digital organisation, our business objectives and cross line of business upfront plans which they were better able to respond to.