Walt frequently reminded everybody that “It all started with a mouse”—which he first named Mortimer and changed to Mickey at his wife’s urging. Hef’s empire began with a stag as a symbol of maleness, abandoned because it was already taken, so replaced by the symbol of eternal horniness, the rabbit. You can make the case his success actually began with Marilyn Monroe, but his brand-builder quickly became the bunny.
These are the two great brand-builders I’ve studied most carefully and admire most: Walt Disney and the keepers of his legacy and Hugh Hefner.
You might not think the two should share the same sentence, but they have a lot more in common than most people would imagine. In fact, Disney and Hefner were developing their businesses and brands in an overlapping time frame, and I feel confident they paid attention to each other with interest, and borrowed from each other liberally.
They both began with virtually no money to work with and built valuable, powerful, iconic brands with little investment in actual brand-building and virtually no brand/image advertising. Both Disney and Hefner grew their brands on the back of direct marketing and sales activity, on free advertising via media partnerships and publicity, and leverage of the media.
Other shared strategies include:
• Creating a world of their own. Walt’s line “The Happiest Place On Earth” might have been used by Hefner for the world of Playboy, symbolized by the Playboy Mansion, if Walt hadn’t already snagged it. Instead, we have actor Robert Culp’s toast for the Mansion: “Gentlemen, gentlemen, be of good cheer, for they are out there and we are in here.” The existential importance of The Playboy Mansion was shown off in a Playboy magazine cartoon, circa 1960, in which a truth-seeker has climbed to a mountain peak to beg wisdom from the wise guru at the top of the mountain. The guru tells him: “There is a man who lives in a mansion full of beautiful women and wears pajamas all the time. Sit at his feet and learn from him, for he has found the secret of true happiness.” Walt also featured a symbolic structure at Disneyland, and again at Disney World: Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, where dreams come true and romance flourishes. Both Disney and Playboy feature a profound sense of place—where no one ever need grow up.
• Standing for and promoting a philosophy. Hefner even called it “The Playboy Philosophy,” and explained it in detail, beginning with a series of wordy essays extending over many months’ issues of the magazine. Hefner argued against censorship, for sexual freedom, for civil rights, even for modern feminism. He also created a series of internal ads titled “What Sort of a Man Reads Playboy?,” which presented a profile worthy of aspiration. Yes, readers were attracted by the pictures and the sex, but they did read the articles, including serious ones. Walt Disney also stood for certain enunciated principles and values, built into the films and entertainment product, taught by Walt, and integrated into projects like Epcot and Celebration. Here are a few revealing Walt Disney quotes:
“Disneyland would be a small world in itself—it would encompass the essence of the things that are good and true in American life . . . a place for people to find happiness and new knowledge. The older generation can capture the nostalgia of days gone by, the younger generation can savor the challenge of the future, and it will be a source of hope and inspiration to all the world.”
Rather a grandiose way to describe an amusement park, don’t you think? But that’s the point. Walt Disney and Hugh Hefner both saw and spoke of significance and importance in what they were doing that went far beyond the basic products and deliverables of their businesses. One more from Walt: “Since the beginning of mankind, the fable-tellers have not only given us entertainment, but a window to wisdom, a way to understanding.” Whether you agree with them or not, these men who built great brands believed they were doing something important.
• Personality-driven brand. Walt was as much the public face of the Disney enterprises as was his creation Mickey. He began promoting Disneyland by hosting a show on ABC, and remained a familiar TV host for many years. The public came to know, admire, and love Walt, and masses wept and mourned the day of his death. He was the company’s chief storyteller and salesman. Hugh Hefner used his own TV show early, purportedly a party in his own penthouse living quarters, with his celebrity buddies all there having a good time. Very recently, after decades, he was seen again starring, with his girlfriends, at the Mansion, in a reality TV series. The two individuals and these two brands, inseparable.
• Cast of characters. Walt and Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, as well as Snow White, Cinderella, Mary Poppins, and the more contemporary Nemo, Belle, and The Beast, etc. Hefner with the Playboy bunnies, the Playmates of the Months, Playmates of the Years, his girlfriends, his celebrity friends. When the Disney company acquired Marvel, its CEO, Bob Iger, said, “You can never have too many good characters.” Hefner has felt the same way about girlfriends.
• Place. The Disney Parks with Cinderella’s Castle as centerpoint. The Playboy Mansion, with its infamous Grotto as its centerpoint. Both sites have a “Fantasyland”!
• Product as Promotion. For Disney, it began with a licensed Mickey Mouse watch and a Disney train, both products credited with rescuing the companies involved from financial struggle. Disney, of course, has become a licensing juggernaut, with its characters and iconic images on hundreds of thousands of products. The Playboy bunny logo is one of the most licensed trademarks of any, of all time, for apparel, cologne, artwork, etc., and just like Mickey and Minnie, caricatures of Playboy bunnies have made their way to statues, dolls, posters, apparel, even custom motorcycles. All this proliferate product not only generates revenues, but it works at promoting and creating and sustaining interest in the brand.
• Media. Walt Disney literally launched Disneyland with what he first considered an unholy alliance with ABC—now Disney owns them, along with ESPN and several Disney-branded cable TV channels and Disney radio stations, but, also, still airs Disney parades and specials on ABC, each an infomercial for the parks, current Disney personalities, and new movies. Hugh Hefner began with his own media, Playboy magazine, but, as noted, promoted Playboy early with TV. To this day, he still uses such media plays—in recent years, there was one reality show, and briefly two, on the E Network, all about the Mansion and his girlfriends. There was a feature film, in 2008, The House Bunny. It was produced by Adam Sandler’s company, Happy Madison, and included stars like Emma Stone, Anna Faris, and Colin Hanks. It debuted at number one at the U.S. box office its first week, number one in the U.K., but ultimately managed just $70 million gross against a $22 million production budget—and it was savaged by critics. Regardless of critics’ opinions or level of success, all these serve as powerful infomercials for the brand, yet Playboy has been paid for them rather than buying advertising. Its own cable TV channel is also both a business itself and continuous, 365-day brand promotion.
I’ve Followed the Disney/Hefner Model and You Can, Too
Looping back, consider how these two men launched and built their brands. They never spent or had to spend on dopey image advertising. Their brands were built by their own media products and businesses, by profitable advertising selling their products, by stealth advertising imbedded in TV programming they were paid to produce and provide or paid licensing fees for, and by an untold variety of merchandise proliferating in the marketplace, for which they were also paid licensing fees.
In much the same way, I have built my brands. I have never once spent a nickel on a “Who Is Dan Kennedy?” or “What Is GKIC?” brand/image advertisement. I have been paid to build my business and my brand, in cash—as with book royalties, article fees, revenue from info-products, speaking fees, and on-site info-product sales at speaking appearances, etc., or in free advertising—as with products featured in others’ catalogs, syndicated articles published in niche industry leaders’ newsletters, being interviewed on countless business-thought leaders’ audio programs and tele-seminars, and book tours paid for by corporate sponsors. Through these means, I reach more than one million business owners a year without a penny of out-of-pocket investment. I have also baked in every other strategy shared by Disney and Playboy described in this chapter.
Martha Stewart is another example of someone who built a powerful and valuable brand from which she has extracted many, many millions of dollars, using fundamentally this same approach, and Rachael Ray has closely followed her model. Incredibly, Martha Stewart’s company has failed to turn a profit for the past six years, and there’s a cautionary tale there for another place and time, but she has personally amassed considerable wealth. And her personal brand had such a strong and passionate following even a stint in federal prison failed to dent her popularity.
If you have a small, local business you may too quickly disqualify yourself and think that this is above and beyond you. There are two things to consider about that. One is that everybody started and starts somewhere, often small and local. Disneyland was, after all, a local business, and central Florida was picked as the second location based on the population within one day’s driving distance. There was no thought initially of global domination. Hefner began in Chicago, his office in his apartment, his magazine assembled atop his bed, and then with one local Playboy Club. Also, these days, geographic boundaries have been blurred and expanded if not erased by ecommerce and overnight shipping. A local gourmet cupcake store in Hudson, Ohio, has customers in 40 states and 9 countries. A clothier’s shop in London, England, Charles Tyrwhitt, mails catalogs throughout the U.S.—including to me, and ships shirts and ties worldwide. Why must you think small?
RECOMMENDED READING
The Disney Way by Capodagli and Jackson
Inside The Magic Kingdom by Connellan
The Vault of Walt: Unofficial, Unauthorized, Uncensored Disney Stories Never Told by Korkis
Disney U. by Lipp
How To Be Like Walt by Williams
The Quotable Walt Disney by Disney Editions
Think Outside The Box by Vance and Deacon
Hef’s Little Black Book by Hugh Hefner with Bill Zehme
Second, even if choosing to be local, and stay small, all the same strategies can and should apply, particularly if you want to be a locally dominant brand. Why shouldn’t you dominate your market?
Figure 17.1 below is the cover of an issue of my Renegade Millionaire Magazine, featuring a profile of Hugh Hefner. The current number-one Dan Kennedy publication is The No B.S. Marketing Letter, and you are invited to sample it free, via the offer on page 261.
FIGURE 17.1
