Monday Morning Marketing: Disney Dirt

Associate Dan Wiznitzer shares some wisdom from his weekend web wanderings…

Ask Me Anything is a section (subreddit) of Reddit where people with interesting professions or life stories answer user-submitted questions. It’s anonymous, although administrators on the site privately verify the authenticity of the “AMA” writer. This weekend, a woman who plays princesses at Walt Disney World offered her knowledge to the Reddit community. Some interesting nuggets I learned included:

1) Women play multiple princesses (and kids are none the wiser).
2) “The majority of Mickey Mouses are little Hispanic women.”
3) “75% of the entertainment cast members are gay, and yes, a lot of
them are incredibly flamboyant.”

I have nothing but fond memories of my trips to Disney World, so was fun to get some harmless, inside “dirt,” but once I put my PR persona back on, I realized the incredibly problematic nature of AMA. Employees can spill the beans about any corporate secret - anywhere. The deterrent to this type of behavior is the infamous non-disclosure agreement, but how can it be enforced against an anonymous internet commenter?

I wonder if corporations have caught on to the threat of employees offering their insider knowledge in an AMA. Hopefully, Disney PR monitored this weekend’s AMA.