We’re Going to Disney World!

What we see, of course, is the finished product, the catchy headline of the press release or the inviting ad that says: Sears Offers Adventure of the Wild with Disney’s Animal Kingdom. We read through the details, view the images. Sure, they intrigue, they interest, they may even fascinate. But, in one way at least, they mislead. Why? Because it all sounds too simple. Because the bright and shining offer disguises the effort and work that brought it into being.

What we want to know is: What happened to make it happen? Who did what to move the promotion from an idea, a joint sales and publicity objective, to a highly integrated, event marketing program placed squarely in the public eye?

“In all our promos, the compatibility of the partners is key,” says Ken Potruck, vp of alliance marketing for Walt Disney World.

Two years before the Win and Be Wild joint promo of this summer, Sears, Hoffman Estates, IL, and Walt Disney World Theme Park, Kissimmee, FL, had joined together for another promotion. According to Sears senior executive vp marketing John H. Costello, the two companies were magically drawn together because of a “common targeted customer.” He describes her as “a woman, 25- to 54-years-old, married, with a family.” She is the chief operating officer and chief financial officer of today’s family, he says.

Costello reveals that the formula for a successful Sears promotion is that it must connect with the target customer; help make Sears the most compelling place to shop; drive sales and profits; and bring fun and excitement to the shopping process.

In 1997, Sears and Disney partnered on the Imagine the Vacation of Your Dreams promotion, in which they combined to offer unique vacation opportunities to Sears customers. What benefits was Disney looking for in the venture? “Disney has an enormous breadth of product, from Disney consumer merchandise to theme parks to cruise lines, nighttime entertainment, dining, you name it,” notes Potruck. A Sears customer who won the Dream Vacation promo would be exposed to that product breadth by being able to choose a visit to the Disney Institute, or Disney World On Ice, or the Disney-owned Wide World of Sports Pavilion, or a luxury cruise to the Bahamas, “or any number of a wide combination,” Potruck says.

According to Potruck, the results of the Vacation of Your Dreams promo were “so terrific,” that Disney told Sears they would be interested in mounting another joint program. So in September of 1997, a team headed by Sears director of event marketing and sales promotion John Lebbad made a visit to Disney’s Animal Kingdom when it was still a construction site, accompanied by personnel from Sears’s Paramus, NJ-based promotion agency, Einson Freeman.

Sears was looking for a way “to make a whole new splash” in its markets, using the excitement of the new theme park to target families, according to Lee Antonio, Sears’s event marketing p.r. manager. Sears was not without expertise in events, having sponsored a Phil Collins tour in 1994 and another starring Gloria Estefan in 1996.

Soon after the familiarization trip, Sears and Disney officials met to scope out the project. According to Lebbad, Sears found that what Disney had in mind “was a huge initiative” involving the launch of their new theme park which would be publicly introduced with appropriate eclat in April. While pleased with plans for the resort’s debut, what Disney wanted was follow-on: a way to sustain the initial public awareness of the park over the summer and into the fall.

By October, officials of both companies were having “serious brainstorming sessions,” says Costello, that dealt with traffic and sales objectives, communications plans, retail displays, media buys, company field sales forces, time slots, and publicity.

A concept is born It didn’t take long before both companies had identified a time frame that was perfect for each. Sears wanted a back-to-school promo, but the retailer also wanted to make sure the timing was good for Disney. “We didn’t want to bang heads,” says Lebbad. To Sears’s delight, they found Disney also favored the fall time-slot because it’s during that period that “people are planning their fall and winter vacations,” and Disney wanted to better communicate “the breadth of the park and what it was about,” in order to boost traffic to the new resort, Potruck says. For its part, Sears felt it could use its stores’ leverage to help Disney generate public awareness of the new vacation destination,” says Lebbad.

Once companies were sure they understood each others’ objectives, they had a formal meeting with Einson Freeman in October. (“A great, really creative group of people to work with,” says Costello.)

Give us a concept, the companies said, and in about five weeks, Einson Freeman delivered the Win and Be Wild Sweepstakes concept, in which a high school student would get a chance to win a free trip to Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

Sears loved it. “We saw right away that it would enable each Sears customer to experience Animal Kingdom in a unique way,” says Lebbad. Creative discussions began, and revisions flew back and forth. If Sears had a particular concern, “it was to make sure Disney wasn’t doing anything similar with any other sponsors,” says Lebbad. They weren’t. Then, as creative discussions continued, the world’s most visited theme park “worked the Disney magic,” according to Costello. Disney came up with an idea that “plussed up and added to the concept,” he says.

What Disney suggested was for the winner of the grand prize to be able to take not just his family, but his whole class to Animal Kingdom in a five-day, four-night adventure at the resort. Says Potruck, “We knew it was truly unique because it was an opportunity to make this young person the hero of the entire class, the neighborhood, the whole community.”

The winner could bring up to 35 class members, plus three people per classmate. Teachers and chaperones would also be included. “The nice part was that we wouldn’t have a bunch of winners scattered around the property, but just this one winner for whom it would be an incredibly unique and memorable experience,” Potruck says.

By late November, the creative concept had been nailed down, says Lebbad. A Sears/ Disney contract was in place by January, consisting mainly of a “term sheet” – a document that says “Sears will do these six things, and Disney will do these six things,” according to Potruck.

By March, the program was in high gear. Sears had assigned its ad agency, Ogilvy and Mather, Chicago, to develop a commercial that would air in prime time prior to the promo’s debut in early August. Ogilvy worked closely with Einson Freeman based on that agency’s knowledge of Disney through previous programs, both going over story boards and content. Einson ensured that all wording in the copy would comply with sweepstakes laws and regulations.

The commercial concept was approved by the end of May, and after revisions, changes, and improvements, Disney and Sears executives saw the final version on July 1. They were delighted: “It had in it the quality of fantasy that we were trying to communicate,” Potruck says.

In April Sears had also turned to ABD, Chicago, its agency for pre-print creative, to develop a tabbed, preprint circular with a four-page insert from Disney promoting Animal Kingdom. Every week, Sears sends a circular advertising offers to 55 million households in Sunday newspapers. The preprint to promote the resort would be sent out the week the promotion was scheduled to break, Aug. 2, and again on Aug. 9.

In the meantime, Einson Freeman was working closely with ABD on the insert for Disney. Disney wanted the circular to present the Animal Kingdom as a vacation destination, as well as include a page that talked about the Win and Get Wild promo with an entry form. Sears also included an advertising spread that would help sell Disney consumer products at Sears stores. “We wanted to reinforce what customers were seeing and hearing in ads and print by what they experience in local stores.”

Another key sales-driving point: “The four-pager made it clear you had to go to Sears to enter the sweepstakes,” says Lebbad.

By April, Sears had its Chicago-based P-O-P company, Schwarz, working on point-of-sale displays to promote the sweeps. After many trips back and forth from Orlando to New York, Schwarz came up with a “Tree of Life” display that was intended to be the icon-equivalent of the Magic Castle at Disney World. Featured on each display were ballot boxes containing entry forms for kids to enter Win and Be Wild. More trips were made as Disney cooperated with Schwarz to get the P-O-S company the best possible photo ops to be used in the display materials.

Meanwhile, back at Mickey’s place . . .

Disney had hardly been idle during Sears’s early efforts. Disney sales and field marketing people had been kept informed of the promo through internal company publications from the beginning. Four to five months before the promotion’s launch, Disney had initiated marketing activities ranging from individual demonstrations in Disney stores to Animal Kingdom brochures distributed in all 830 full-line participating Sears stores and its 2,600 off-line stores.

In addition, Disney field people were working with individual communities to get media and other support. “Getting ahead of a promo is a key element,” says Potruck.

Disney was also activating its sources in the travel agent community. “We created an awareness of the Animal Kingdom promo and told travel agents how they could take advantage of it,” Potruck says. He adds that many travel agents initiated direct-mail and print campaigns to get people to add Animal Kingdom to their vacation options. “We knew travel agents were looking for our marketing support,” Potruck says.

Sears, too, got internal efforts going early. The company sends out monthly notices to employees, both written and audio, about various programs, and one was specifically created that helped to educate them to execute the promo smoothly once the display materials arrived in-store. “It was a very executionally driven how-to guide,” Lebbad says.

In June, Sears also readied targeted marketing efforts for the Hispanic community, a market important to its partner Disney as well. Sears would use as its marketing tool the back-to-school issue of Sears’ Spanish-language magazine, Nuestra Gente.

Sears was also hard at work on publicity, an element that can make or break an integrated marketing effort, according to Lee Antonio. The Sears p.r. unit “had a seat at the table from the conceptual stages on,” she says.

Its job was to “make a splash” but also to ensure that company’s messages and tactics were “in line with each other,” she adds.

In June, according to plan, Sears began to make noise in the trade publications, providing them with visuals of logos and point of sales info that the trade press could use in its coverage. Sears also provided video footage of the Ogilvy spots. “The timing was very delicate. It had to be not too early and not too late,” Antonio says. At the end of July, Sears released consumer publicity whose stated purpose, says Antonio, “was to drive traffic into the stores.”

The promo officially began Aug. 2. On that date the pre-print circular was sent out, the commercial TV spot was airing, the ethnic marketing effort was in full swing, and P-O-S materials were up in all 830 Sears full-line stores. Plus, both Disney and Sears had begun to advertise the promo on their respective Web sites. The promo ended Aug. 15, the whole enterprise taking about nine months.

Ballots for the sweepstakes winner are still being counted and announcement of the winner is scheduled for the early this month.

The winner announcement “is to be a surprise. We’ll have the media on site for the event,” Antonio says, refusing to disclose any further details.

Evaluation of results will begin soon after that – tracking that will analyze consumer sales and profit impact of the sweepstakes. Thanks to Sears’s huge database, that should not take long. “We have the ability to analyze over 1,000 variables per household,” says Costello.

Predicts Antonio,” I think we have another winner on our hands.”