The failure of Disney’s America can be considered one of the biggest PR missteps that Disney has experienced since the start of Michael Eisner’s era. The presented case covers most of the missteps the company has done during the development of the project. This paper will describe two of the main problems the company faced while trying to develop this theme park.
The Missteps
Michael Eisner was responsible for Disney’s recovery after the death of Walt Disney. He was a very competitive businessman, and most of his projects were successful at bringing the company back into the public’s eye. However, during the early 1990s, the company started experiencing financial issues. The project that would eventually become Disneyland Paris was projected to open with a large amount of debt, leaving the company with no choice but to cancel a series of projects.
To continue expansion on a smaller budget, Michael Eisner proposed a project called “Disney’s America.” It was supposed to attract tourists visiting Washington D.C. by showing historical events and landmarks in the form of a theme park. Unfortunately for Disney, the lower budget project became much more costly due to the public outcry from the citizens of Virginia. As the case points out, the cost of the project became much higher due to possible legal action, negative PR, and modifications to the plan of the park. This increase in costs was one of the main problems that the company experienced at the time. With the shaky opening of Disneyland Paris, the company could not afford another unprofitable park (Knight, 2014).
As it was mentioned earlier in the paper, negative PR became a colossal problem for the company. This issue was multifaceted and included such things as the location of the park being close to a memorial site, unwanted urbanization of nearby communities, perceived lack of respect toward history, possibility of drawing tourists away from the historical sites in the area, emotional outbursts of Eisner during his interviews with the press, John Dreyer’s dislike of the press, and even the name of the park was seen as a possible attempt to commercialize the country. With so many parts being involved in the negative PR it is important to choose a few of the bigger ones.
According to a quote from Michael Eisner’s book provided in the case, the company was blindsided by the public reaction to the location of the park. The park was to be built only three miles away from Manassas Battlefield Park, a site of two major Civil War battles, and a place of death of thousand American soldiers. It is a highly revered place, that is visited by hundreds of thousands people each year. Citizens of Virginia saw this as a clear disrespect to the historical sight. The case shows that the company announced this project without preparing the people living in Virginia, which led to their immediate distrust of the company.
Another, part of the negative PR that deserves extra attention is the treatment of press by Dreyer. His distrust and hostility towards the press eliminated all the reporters in the Washington D.C. area who could have helped the company recover from the initial public outcry. Without the positive press, the project quickly ran out of control with the outcry spreading outside the state of Virginia and onto the national level. This issue, combined with the unstable financial situation of the company led to the cancellation of the project (Bonilla, 2013).
Conclusion
Not all PR is good PR if you are unwilling to work with the press. Negative PR turned the project unprofitable and therefore unfeasible for the company. After the failure of Disney’s America, the company tried to reshape the project multiple times, but none of the plans proved viable. The plan for the smaller American park would eventually be realized in “Disney’s California Adventure” which would also open to a very negative public reaction.
References
Bonilla, Y. (2013). History unchained. Transition, 112. Web.
Knight, C. (2014). Power and paradise in Walt Disney’s world. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.