I lined up like a lemming. I listened to a song drone on while little
puppets danced to a never-ending song. I paid too much for everything.
And yet at the end of a long day, I was happy.

Two parades, a boat ride, train ride, car ride, an elephant ride, all in
one day. But the clincher, the thing that said it all to me was as the
day wound down, we were trying to find a seat on Main Street to see the
second parade and fireworks. Yes, the second parade in that day.

Of course there were no seats, so we grabbed a piece of road. As I sat, I
ran my hand over the pseudo concrete surface to see how dirty it was.
Nothing, zero, zilch.  My hand was clean.

It was then that the entire day went through my head again.  There were
a million people there that day (and every day), yet everything was
clean, almost pristine and aside from a sweeper or two, I didn't even
notice how they did it.  At SeaWorld when the Clydesdale dropped
something on the road, a little wet vacuum truck appeared and disposed
of the memento, but I didn't see any of that at the Magic Kingdom -
nothing to distract me from the experience at hand.

Talk about managing a brand from A-Z.  Make me a promise, deliver that
promise in spades, and let me pay an admission to experience it.  Ding
ding ding, we have winner!

We can learn a lot from brands like Disney.  While we may not be
charging money to consumers to view our product, we are asking them to
spend their time with us (our clients). In essence time is their price
of admission - more precious than hard currency in these times.

We should ask ourselves, is what I'm producing worth the price of
admission? 

As the fireworks reached the crescendo, I was lost, for a moment I
forgot about everything else, there were no sounds around me, nothing
but me and the lights in the FLA sky.  As I snapped back to reality, I
was already planning my return visit.

-Vito Greto