Disney Interactive's Cindy Rose delivers eye-opening keynote
Television is just the tip of the entertainment iceberg for today’s consumers, Cindy Rose, senior vice-president and managing director of Disney Interactive Media Group, EMEA, said in her keynote on cross-platform gaming.
With a sequence of 10 slides and a battery of statistics, she depicted vividly a new world where multi-tasking and interactivity are essential for all ages.
A survey of consumers aged 13 to 75 posted the question: Is your computer becoming more of an entertainment device than your TV? Among the millennials (ages 13-24) 80% answered yes; Gen Xers (25-41) 74%; baby boomers (42-60) 64%; and even among seniors it was 51%.
A poll of Disney consumers aged seven to 14 showed “they are typically on five websites at the same time while watching TV and instant messaging, all at the same time”.
On average, 80% own and use multiple gaming devices – for example 84% have a DS and a Wii. The typical day of a European child consists of gaming for breakfast, mobile phone before and after school, PC before dinner and family TV after. Rose said those trends caused her to look closely at her own children’s entertainment schedules.
Rose provided a quick tour of Disney’s 23 interactive sites, ranging from Tinkerbell through Pirates Of The Caribbean to the forthcoming World Of Cars.
At Club Penguin “an ad-free online playground”, boys’ favourite activities were games and parties, while girls opt to decorate their igloos and customise their penguins. That brand was already on multiple platforms and in merchandising, with the potential for theme parks and other earners. While the “Disney difference” was that her company had the scope and resources to do that, she told broadcasters: “You can no longer be satisfied serving up traditional linear TV shows.”