I’m not a Disney fan, but the marketer in me ended up loving Disney more than my 5-year old did and here’s why!

Last month, my wife and I took our kids to Disneyland. 

Since I’m not a Disney guy, I thought I’d be bored out of my mind during all 3 days at the park. 

However, Disney really impressed the marketer in me, so starting today (and over this week), I want to share my top 5 reasons why. 

Let me start with the most important of them all – positioning!

I love focus groups, and so asked people who had been to Disney about the first thoughts that came to mind upon hearing the word “Disney”.

While there were some regular words such as “good”, “wonderful”, “amazing”, etc., a majority of responses seemed to use the same few phrases:

– Magical
– Happy place
– I love Disney

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, because Disney’s messaging around its resorts (like Magical Kingdom) states that it is the happiest place on earth!

It also sells millions of Disney T-shirts and probably the most sold T-shirt (which reads “I love Disney”), is what you see a thousand times on any given day at Disney.

In short, what people remember most about Disney are the exact phrases that Disney is telling them about itself.

Disney was always smart enough to equip its fans with the exact messaging to remember them by.

The real magic here is Disney’s marketing that gets everyone to recall them with the exact same words, always!