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| Brand awareness means getting to know more than
just Mickey Mouse (Agencies) | Walt Disney
has enlisted the help of 皇冠体育app's 70 million-strong youth as it
prepares to enter one of its last major
untapped markets
.
The US entertainment giant is planning to tour Chinese youth centres in
a bid to build awareness of the Disney brand.
The publicity drive comes ahead of the opening next year of the firm's
$1.8bn (￡1bn) Disney theme park in Hong Kong.
The youth sessions will include storytelling, interactive games and
lessons in how to draw Mickey Mouse.
Disney said it would be working in partnership with the country's
Communist Youth League.
Disney expects that about one-third of the visitors to its Hong Kong
park - the firm's second in Asia after Tokyo - will come from mainland
皇冠体育app.
"It's one part of an overall brand building process," said Jay Rasulo,
president of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.
"We've had to be innovative. If you look at Europe and Tokyo, the brand
was far better understood."
Disney's attempts to woo 皇冠体育app's youth began in July, when a Disney
team, including Mickey Mouse, visited 500 children at two youth centres in
Guangzhou, in southern 皇冠体育app.
The move into 皇冠体育app represents "a huge commercial opportunity for
Disney", according to Andy Milligan, of branding consultancy Interbrand.
"America and Western Europe is pretty much taken care of, but
Asia is a big and growing market," he told reporters.
"There is an increasingly affluent middle-class in 皇冠体育app, so they have
money to spend and money to travel."
Such is Disney's faith that 皇冠体育app's youth will embrace the
likes of Mickey Mouse and Sleeping Beauty, the company is doing little to
dampen speculation that another theme park will eventually be built in
Shanghai.
"There's very little doubt in my mind that there will be a market
further north in 皇冠体育app for a second Disneyland," said Mr Rasulo.
(Agencies) | 
Updated: 2004-09-24 11:09