The Goofy Games: Disney's Clever Theme Park Marketing

Описание: The Goofy Games were a multi-day sporting event that was held every spring at Walt Disney World. Teams of four from across the country, and later the world, would compete in somewhat silly competitions in what would ultimately be Disney’s own light-hearted Olympics. From afar, nothing about the event seemed that innovative or creative. However the clever marketing came in the form of just who made up those teams. Because you see the teams weren’t based on cities or states or nations like in most sporting events, they were based on local television stations.

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Starting small, 25 major market television stations from across the country were invited on an all-expense paid trip to Disney World to participate in The Goofy Games. The idea was that one member of the team would be the station’s representative, usually an anchor or reporter. They, in turn, would get two professional athletes, sometimes from their region, to join the team. Lastly, they’d hold their own local contest in which one lucky viewer would get to join the team as the 4th and final member. The teams would compete at #Disney for prize money that would be donated to a charity of their choosing.

It was a brilliant event concept. For one lucky viewer per team, they were winning an all-paid trip to #WaltDisneyWorld. For the television stations, they were gaining exposure and positive PR from not only running the contest that offered that free trip, but for partaking in a charitable event. The athletes were gaining similarly positive press for taking part, and it was lending the event some star power because, let’s be honest, local news anchors aren’t really going to draw in crowds. Finally, Disney was gaining positive exposure for running the entire event. However beyond that, they were inviting 25 major market television stations. So of course those stations were bringing their own crews to the event and of course they were covering it on their news programs. For the price of the event, Disney was gaining the media exposure of 25 major markets. It was a win for everybody.

The event was such a success that it would be held again the following year, and by the third Goofy Games in 1987, the number of participating stations would double to fifty. The year after that teams from other nations were invited, and perhaps most notably one of the teams featured popular Olympian Eddie the Eagle from the UK. By this point the event was generating over a quarter of a million dollars for the chosen charities. Disney would cleverly pick events that would highlight new additions to the theme parks so that folks at home watching their local teams would get a look at what was new down in Florida.

So what happened to the Goofy Games? Well, for as much as I searched, there was no public reason I could find to explain the end of the event in 1991. The final year of the event wasn’t promoted as such, so it just seems that by 1992 they chose not to run it anymore. It is worth noting that by that final year they had scaled the event back to just feature athletes. Perhaps the novelty of the event was wearing off. When it began in the mid 1980s satellite broadcasting for smaller channels was still relatively new, so there was something special about the idea of your local station reporting from somewhere further away like Disney World. But after a while, like most technology, it just became a part of everyday life. By that point Euro Disney, now Disneyland Paris, was also well underway and proving to be a significant financial burden on Disney, so it’s entirely possible that when it came time to tighten their belt, events like this were dropped to save money.