Marketing Happy Hour - Building Brand Loyalty Through Nostalgia and Fandoms | Ilana Gelfand of The Walt Disney Company

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Ally and I sit down with Ilana Gelfand, Senior Manager, Global Social Strategy at Disney Consumer Products. With 12+ years of experience in marketing and social media, Ilana has led creative content and brand strategy for some of the world’s most popular brands, including Disney and Loungefly. We discuss Ilana’s illustrious career in selling a lifestyle over a product and how the organic positioning of that lifestyle is the unlock to greater audience connection. We walk through how to drive authenticity within your brand’s consumers through nostalgia, self-expression and niche fandoms.Key Takeaways:// To sell a lifestyle instead of a product - identify your target audience, learn how they want to be seen and align your messaging to how they want to be spoken to.// Build nostalgia for your brand by referencing the past and finding fresh ways to incorporate it in the present.// When choosing influencers for a campaign, consider lookalike influencers that may have various crossover interests that align with the campaign look and feel.// Brands are currently underutilizing Pinterest - Gen Z is using Pinterest as a creative outlet and opportunity to build an individual user world.Connect with Ilana: LinkedIn | Instagram____Say hi! DM me on Instagram and let us know what content you want to hear on the show - I can't wait to hear from you! Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. ⁠Join our FREE Open Jobs group on LinkedIn: ⁠Join now⁠Get the latest from MHH, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our email list!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow MHH on Social: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

It very much starts with who the audience is. What do they want to see? We get so caught up in corporate world about like, we have to please our partners. We have to make sure everybody's getting the proper real estate on social. It really just comes down to like, who is our audience and what do they want to see and how do they want to be spoken to? I even almost pinpoint specific people. I kind of say like, who is this particular campaign for? I think that's the way to stay through to how you kick off the story. Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour. I'm Cassie, Consultant, and your host. Every Thursday, you'll hear episodes packed with insights from brand leaders on an array of topics from crafting effective marketing strategies and hitting career goals to building

leadership skills and launching your own business. Inspired by those unfiltered happy hour combos with peers, this show is all about practical, empowering chats to support your professional journey. So grab your favorite drink and let's get to the episode. Today we have Alana with us senior manager global social strategy at Disney Consumer Products. Joining us to talk all things, social creativity. It's going to be a great conversation, but I got to say, like, we met you through a very unconventional niche way. We all, of course, love Disney. You work for Disney, of course, but we have this kind of like vintage worlds that we're all in, which is very fun. I'm stoked to have connected you there, Alana, and then now to have you on the show. Welcome.

The obsession is real, and that community is so real, the fact that it even brought us here. But, yeah, I'm deeply obsessed with my vintage Disney world, and I'm a little bit upset that I didn't wear one today. But usually, usually, yeah, usually I'm in something. I want to ask, are you also a collector, too? Like, are you collecting just even outside of just your personal collection that you're wearing? Yeah, I have last I counted, although it's definitely. gone up. I have about 250 vintage Disney t-shirts alone. Add the multiple jackets of many jackets, probably like 40 or 50 jackets, jewelry I love. So it is definitely a collection. And within

my collection, I also specifically love to collect cowboy mickeys. Cassie knows this. And then specifically even two gun Mickey because I just think like the lore behind two gun Mickey is just so amazing. and I've been collecting him since I was like 16. It's gotten a little more popular now, not to my taste, but... Wow. Okay. See, this is a whole other side conversation where they have to have later. That's absolutely. Okay.

Amazing. Well, if you don't follow Lana on Instagram, first of all, the Instagram, the content's amazing. I think we've followed you for probably even longer since we got into this whole world. And so it's so much fun to see, like, what you're wearing and how you're styling it in the office and everything. So, kudos to you for all of that. Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely. Just trying to bring a little Disney to the corporate world.

Absolutely. Aren't we all? Truly. So, Alana, I have to ask, of course, as we kick off here with this episode, what's been in your glass lately? Okay. My glass is usually, because I am a mother, my glass is usually filled with coffee. An ice vanilla latte, preferably not from Starbucks, usually ends up that way. anyway, that's by morning. And then by evening, there's usually some glass of Savignon Blanc. So to share, if you don't mind a little bit about your career journey, what led you to Disney today?

How long have you been with the company? Like, what's kind of the story there overall? To tell that story is not in the form of a little bit. So we'll try to, we'll try to sum it up as fast as possible. I started in the fashion industry. I always wanted to work in fashion and the business of fashion. I was a wardrobe stylist for television for a little while. It was actually my dream. I remember my, like, first day of college. They asked, like, what's your, like, dream job in this one class? And it was my dream to be the wardrobe stylist for Disney Channel stars, specifically, like

Selena Gomez, Circa, Wizards of Waverly Place, and Miley Cyrus, Circa, Hannah Montana. And so we're not so far off in where I landed. But so I did do some wardrobe styling a little bit. I was a dancer in my heyday, and I used to audition for So You Think You Can Dance. And when I couldn't join, when I never made it, I worked in wardrobe there. And then that flipped over to American Idol. I quickly learned I didn't want to be a stylist and living that freelance life. So this was, I'm aging myself, but this was in the time of if you don't work for a startup, you're going to not succeed at life.

So I went and latched on to a startup that was essentially like a high-end eBay, kind of like the real, real today. And that was the best experience that I've had because I was a fashion director, content, marketing. That was my first, like, real journey into marketing and trying to just get this thing off the ground. It was also very early days of Instagram. It was also, we didn't have a name around influencer marketing, but there were girls with tumblers and blogs. And we wanted to make sure that they were talking about us. So it was a lot of networking in that world. And then just kind of branding and packaging stuff because this was a,

A job where we sold Hermes-Burkin bags for $30,000, but they were used. So it was also like, how do we get the person who wants to spend, but also get them to understand? Use doesn't necessarily mean bad or that it's thrifted to them. A lot of good brand marketing in that world. I left there. This is now 2014 or something. When I left there was my first job at Disney.

So Disney had an open role for content strategist. Disney style. And I was like, I'm a Disney fan. I'm a fashion girl. Nobody is allowed to have that job except for me, whatever this Disney style thing is. And so I got that job. At the time, Disney style was predominantly a blog. And we also had other channels, including social. And so myself and one of the girl ran the Disney style handle. And that was like the first kind of time where we could physically see other than the growth of this startup which did eventually sell. This was the first time I could see like, oh, we took an Instagram account from 100,000 followers to 1.2 million followers. Like, we did that, two people. And just by showing and sharing all the things that are happening

in Disney and fashion and making that an important thing and showing that we as a company care. And I was on this team, Disney style was a team of several verticals. There was Oh My Disney, which was kind of like Disney's BuzzFeed. There was mini style. Mini style was the company's way of positioning Minnie Mouse as a fashion taste maker and influencer. And so I ran that along with the franchise, the Minnie Mouse franchise team. And then there was a parenting one and a Disney baby one.

So these were all these verticals that basically Disney started because they had kids down pat. They had parents who have kids down Pat, but they didn't really have this millennial audience. and they were seeing this sort of age gap in who their audience was across the Walt Disney company. So that is why they created this digital space and these vertical brands. So anyway, at one point, I went from just doing Disney style to owning my Disney mini style. And then I did that for four and a half for five years and really loved my job and life and all things getting to take Minnie Mouse to New York Fashion Week.

And just so many cool moments, red carpets and talking about what people are wearing at Disney premieres and whatnot. It's a really cool opportunities there. And then our leadership came in and said, we're actually going to launch this new streaming service soon. It's called Disney Plus. It's going to be launching in about a year and a half from now. And it's predominantly going to target this millennial audience because that is who is streaming.

So you guys who all work on these millennial digital brands are going to now work on Disney Plus. So I was brought over as part of the team to help launch Disney Plus on social and digital. I worked on content strategy for YouTube as well as a much larger team who worked on some of the other social platforms. Now I was doing that for about a year and then I was like, I am no longer touching fashion, which is truly where my heart was cutting trailers for Jeff Goldblum's new show about ice cream and um and i had to get 900 approvals so yes it was a very good show by the way i love jethgo bloom but it was no longer talking about fashion and so in this great you know synchronized moment i used to have or i used to work with the team from lounge fly very closely and so

the SVPs of creative and innovation at lounge fly reached out to me and said hey we're just starting marketing. Right now we are like the mini backpack of the parks. We're seeing a lot attraction, but we are just starting marketing. This is like in the pandemic or just out of the pandemic maybe. And would you want to come over and create sort of what you've done with Disney style and create this community for Loungefly? And I was like, yes, please take me. So I left Disney on my own and went to be the director of marketing and social for Lounge Fly, which was incredible and just, again, being able to see this buildup of a community, seeing physical numbers on social platforms grow, making people actually understand or know the name Lounge Fly as opposed to whatever that many backpack is at the park.

Seeing people walking around the parks with products, with Lounge Fly products from retailers and not just products that they bought in the parks means that they saw it somewhere from the marketing that we did. A lot of great ways to see the success there. the company was just kind of on fire and then i kind of said i want to go back to disney so there were many changes happening at lounge fly funco owned lounge fly or owns lounge fly and they had a lot of just changes for the company a lot of the executive leadership left from lounge fly including those those creatives that brought me on and so i said it was kind of time went and looked for your roles at disney saw this global social strategy role once again looked at it and said, that is mine. So nobody else is allowed to have it. And that is where I've

been now for the last year in the consumer products department. So when you say, how long have I been at Disney? I'm what they call a boomerang where I, you guys and come back. And so if you, if you calculate it all together, it's really like six and a half years. But it's, if you count the gap, it's 10. So yeah, that's what brought me back to Disney and my current role. Big, long journey from so you think you can dance to here. It's so awesome. Oh, my gosh. That's great. Thank you for sharing. It's honestly helpful context as we chat with you. And I think one of the things you've kind of said about your career specifically is that it's always really been about selling a lifestyle rather than the specific product, right? So can you talk us through some ways you help identify that narrative before building the brand story around it? Yeah, of course. I'm really passionate about this topic, by the way. It very much starts with who the audience is. Like who are we trying to tap and what do they want to see? Forget like we get so caught up in corporate world about like we have to please our partners. We have to make sure everybody's getting the proper real estate on

social and we get very caught up and like we're supporting too much parks and we're not enough of this and whatnot. And it's really just comes down to like who is our audience and what did they want to see and how do they want to be spoken to? And I am fortunate that for myself and anybody that I've worked with over the last like 10 years, we're all fans as well. So we see. speak the same language and when and we kind of feel like we know what they want to see because I want to see it too um so I think in terms of starting that narrative it's who are they and I even almost pinpoint specific people like I'll go to I'm very much deeply in the Disney creator community and I also study fashion shows and so um I kind of say like who is this particular campaign for

is it for that Disney person? Is it for the, are we trying to get a new audience out of this fashion girlie? Okay, now let's literally name who that is. If we could get Cassie Tucker to like this thing, that's all I want. That is who, what would she want to see? And that represents a lot, you know, a much broader audience. So I think that's the way to stay, you know, true to how, how you kick off the story. For sure.

And I think has there been a moment for you so far in your career where you kind of said, I'm not just doing a marketing function. I'm not just in a marketing industry. I'm actually helping to shape the culture moving forward. It's funny because during the time of shaping the culture with Disney style and kind of lounge fly, I don't think you really realize it until later and you go, okay, the only reason people are wearing lounge fly, for example, all over the parks where I used to see one in 50 people wearing a backpack now there's one in five.

The only reason that is is because marketing, more sales. more product more placement etc and so then you kind of go okay i helped do that um but i think during it i'm so focused on just like you like just wanting to put out good shit i'm and not um having to and not really thinking about like oh we're we're we're moving something we're selling stuff we're generating something i think it um i don't it's hard to get caught up in that when you're so just focused on having fun doing it you know i always joke this is i told you i'm long winded, but I always joke that at LoungeFly, people would come over to my office and go, like, how come, like, I can't do that fun thing that you're doing? Or like, how do I be in a TikTok?

And I'm like, I don't know. You went into the wrong field. What do you want? Like, you chose product development. I chose this. Yep. So true. And I think just when we think about what it is that we do, specifically on the marketing side, marketing has always been about people, right? And I think I'm curious to hear from you in terms of the lifestyle brands that you've worked for, what kind of makes that brand stick with an audience emotionally? And like, how do you know when you've struck that chord with them? What are the signs you see from the audience? Yeah, that's a great question. I'm big on authenticity, right? It's kind of like dating, right? If you get in a car with a guy or your partner or whoever it is and you're like, we're not flowing off of each other. There isn't a two-way

conversation happening. Like, I'm awkward or they're awkward or whoever it is. And that's kind of what marketing needs to be, right? That is a two-way street of like, are we flowing? Are we vibing? If not, let me try to change the way we're doing something because it is a relationship, right? So I think when it sticks or knowing it sticks is when it feels natural, right? Just like you know, like, are they the one? It feels so natural, so like they must be the one. And if it feels like we're struggling to get engagement or we're trying to pump out something because some leader up the ladder said we had to, then that's where I'm like, let's reset, reset. What are we doing wrong?

And let's just try this other avenue and try to flow that way and see if that works. So, yeah, I think when it's natural is when you really see that it's sticking. Yeah. And I think as marketers, that takes a lot of patience with ourselves, with our content that we're creating. I mean, there's professionals every single day who are micro-analyzing every single post. that goes out and wondering why is this not working and why is this not performing and there's of course so many different layers but do you have any encouragement for just building that patience

with yourself as a creative to test and to to try new things because it is kind of a grind and it takes time but we kind of have to just see what happens and try things and and assess from there yeah as much as probably the company wouldn't want me to say this there's social is so fleeting and and so there are moments that you just have to you have to try and if it fails it doesn't mean that like the whole it doesn't mean anything it just means that that one particular post might have failed for sometimes it's the algorithm's fault sometimes it's the time of day sometimes it's but like we get so caught up in um you know oh people aren't responding to repunzel anymore and it's like no they're not no whoa whoa whoa right and and we just kind of try

So, yeah, my advice is kind of just to not get caught up in the metrics of it all. And yes, of course, you don't want to not see the successes come about event. You should still see and work towards those successes. But I think it is necessary in order to gain those successes to try and see what sticks. And it's not permanent. And if something does feel like it's permanent, particularly in the cancel culture that we're in today, I'm a big believer that you could be a good brain. and a good person. There's a human behind it. It's all humanity. So there are ways to sort of,

I don't know, just recover. I don't, yeah, I don't necessarily want to get into the cancel of it all because that would be canceled somehow. But no, I know what you mean for sure. It's, it's important. However, it's like you just have to kind of keep moving with it. And okay, maybe that didn't land. Let's see what we can learn from it. But we have to push forward. And there's this balance of kind of gut checking content and approaches, but also analyzing that data, right? So you just got to keep moving. Just keep moving forward. Exactly. So too, with a lot of the brands and just the different elements that you've worked with, there's this level of nostalgia, right? These are longstanding brands that you're working with. So how are you kind of balancing that nostalgia while also staying

relevant and keeping this fresh, I guess, appearance to audiences as well. I always say that I'm kind of a cheater in marketing because I have like the easiest form in that I have these beloved franchises, characters, stories that to just build extension on to put in today's world to, you know, micro size content. But ultimately like I don't have a lip gloss nobody's ever heard of. I have a toy story, woody lip gloss that I could have a pile of and have the claw come and pick a pile of lip glosses up. And people know what that means, right? Because there's a reference already there. So I'm always like, wow, I got it good. And so obviously there's so many challenges to it and making sure, and we have obviously so many guidelines within the company

on how we can utilize and speak to it. And that is the biggest challenge more so. But I think can be being able to reference films and in these characters in their nostalgia that we know people are already responding to. We already have that data that they can respond, that they respond to these scenes or niche moments from films because they've been out for a while. And so we can kind of take those and find fresh ways to show them based on what's going on platforms, trends that are happening. And then also just fresh new ways. We challenge my job in social and sort of all across marketing is is to challenge the studios and say this is how I know we talk about the claw going like this all the time but what if it does I don't know this is a

terrible example but like what if it does something totally different and they're kind of like whoa whoa whoa we this is the story this is how we've been told and so to be able to challenge that day to day to keep it fresh for the audience to make people go oh my god I can't believe they said that or that makes sense bring it I'll bring up the vintage world because I know you guys are so familiar that there's plenty of crossover character moments on product that we mix princesses and you'll see Wendy and Tinkerbell with the princesses whereas today we don't really do that but that doesn't mean that there isn't a place in a time where we might be able to do that

it just needs to be for the right reason and not just to slap on a style guide on a t-shirt but there might be an element or a way to do that I think it is referencing the past and then finding the fresh ways to do it to do it now but For sure. And I think one of the ways that Disney is doing that is activating with these creators, right? And the people you're partnering with to help bring that to life. So what are some of the things that you look for when you're choosing influencers to represent the brand? I like to look for lookalike creators. People who are kind of might have a lookalike audience who are very curated for a specific reason. Like we're using them because this is a fashion partnership and they are, let's call it, like, like a, we're not doing a Lueva, but let's say it's like a Lueva who are very like raw in their TikTok. Let's use this kind of creator who is also that way to represent Disney for this particular partnership so that people see the through line. I'll give you an example at Loungefly. We had a Lisa Frank collection and rather than, of course, we found the creators who were avid Lisa Frank fans. But we also partnered with a girl who had six million followers who was famous for rainbow hair.

and her rainbow hairstyles because most likely the six million followers who follow her for just her rainbow hair also might be interested in Lisa Frank and so there isn't that direct correlation but it is correlated enough and I see a lot of success in that I'm going about it with that approach another component that I like are fan pages again with Loungefly if we couldn't get the stars of Gilmore girls to post about the bag well there's still a Gilmore girls highly engaged fan page that with a hundred thousand followers who would love that bag to partner with. And guess what?

She sold out the bag for us in minutes. So it's really just about finding those particular people that aren't just girl who's going to style the bag and cool. Now we have a piece of content. But like how are we really looking at what their audiences and who they're already speaking to and how can they benefit us?

Yeah, there's so much organic crossover when you think about these small niches. And there are so many other opportunities that I think brands still have a lot of runway to explore in terms of going outside of the traditional sort of influencer marketing strategy world. And so I'm curious to hear from you, what have you found works best when building that sort of long-term brand affinity through your influencer marketing strategies? We've actually moved a little bit more towards long-term contracts with creators because we know

people want to see repeat characters on social. We know particularly those who really do work. If they work, why would we get rid of them and just go find somebody else, right? And so trying to build out that these are people who really speak for the brand, they're ambassadors of the brand, or even just of a particular campaign. For example, we've been running the Toy Story 30th campaign and you will see some of the same creators popping up, getting different products, speaking about different products in their unique voice because if it's stuck for the first collection, why would we not just now make them a voice of Toy Story 30th? So I think that's definitely a tactic that we're utilizing. And very transparently, the Walt Disney company is very particular about creators that we can partner with, right? You can't be somebody who is already using the IP in some way.

You can't be selling merch or promoting unlicensed merchandise. How could we possibly work with you to sell licensed merchandise if you're promoting unlicensed merchandise? And so we do have very many, a lot of particular guidelines to the creators that we can work with. So it also benefits us to do the long-term partnerships so that we're not going to the vetting process over and over and over again. And in addition, it's creating that long-term relationship with the with the audience too. Yeah, right. Makes so much sense. So pivoting back into social, for example, specifically, I know this answer may change depending on what's going on in the platforms and things like that. But I'm just curious, you know, currently as we're recording this in

August of 2025, what social platforms or formats do you think are currently, being underutilized for brand storytelling and maybe it's outside of social too you know anything that you're just seeing that's of intrigue for connecting with audiences okay well i'm people on my team i'll have to tell you i'm passionate about Pinterest yes hey i think that's talking about Pinterest yeah i love i think Pinterest like had its moment left came is back on the scene and z's using Pinterest a lot because people are getting back to the creative world of getting inspired and using other people's inspiration. So I, and it is very much a individual user world and a little bit less in the brand space. Disney is just starting to re-explore because we used Pinterest

back in my old days, but now re-explore Pinterest, I believe the studios just started a new handle back when Snow White live action launched because that was a very Pinteresty film, right? We could The team, my dear friend Mel, worked on, you know, a very aesthetic picnic of Snow White Live Action Picnic, very cottage core and whatnot. Where should that live? Of course, that should live on a Disney Pinterest. So I think that that is currently being underutilized by brands in particular, maybe not by users, but by brands. And something that we're even exploring as well as we look to some of our upcoming campaigns. And the great thing about Disney is that not everything warrants everything.

You know, like Winnie the Pooh maybe is great for Pinterest, but does not need his own TikTok, right? Or princesses also might bode well for a Pinterest or an Instagram, but maybe also doesn't, Rapunzel doesn't need her own, well, I didn't say Repuzzle doesn't need her own TikTok because I would love to watch Repundle. Yeah, but you know what I was a bad example because I actually would love that. The Grimis would definitely be a lot. Yeah, but so the same way McDonald's lean so heavily with Grimmis and to TikTok Instagram, You know, so we have a lot of different, we have a lot of flexibility of where we can go and on what platforms, but that is definitely the platform that I think is being underutilized. And then you also asked if it's not a social platform, what I think is being underutilized. And this is not necessarily to answer that question, but I'm a very, I'm very big on experiential. I had to get, I always think experiential is the hardest thing to get greenlit as a marketer. I can't explain to, I used to say, use this quote to my old, um, my old, old supervisor, but I'd be like, I can't explain to you or people why you watch

a Taco Bell commercial and you didn't go run outside and go buy Taco Bell for five minutes later. And we can now track that. So I'm like, that is brand marketing and that is experiential. People show up. They're going to post, but I can't tell you if we sold anything from it. And, and, but I'm a big believer in the long-term game of experiential. And it's grown so much over the past several years. And I don't, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the biggest, grandest scale. It can also be these tiny, small, little, like much smaller than a pop-up. It could be a corner of a pop-up, a multi-pop-up. So I'm just really big on putting investment there and knowing that that helps with the long term, but is not necessarily something immediate.

But anyway, I wanted to just say that the more specifically that the coffee raves that are going on right now are for my specific world of there should be more daytime coffee raves across brands and brands should be leaning into them because no alcohol, so anybody can show up and just an excuse to party, like there's nothing. I just am applauding the brands that are that are leaning into that. Yeah. And it's cool. I mean, same with social, right? Like, there's essentially no rules. There's rules, but no rules. Like, you can kind of, brands are just doing these out of the box things. And of course, it integrates very well with social, right? So yes, it's not a social platform. however, like how can you also use social to amplify that experience or get people excited about

it or whatever? So you kind of already talked about coffee raves. What do you think is, you know, extending upon that conversation? What do you think is the next subculture and niche that's ripe to be legitimized in a bigger way? This is a loaded question. Well, I mean, between the three Disney vintage collectors, I'm specifically like where I actually do, speaking of the vintage Disney community. I do think that Disney doesn't acknowledge the vintage community enough. I am hoping in my long-term career at Disney to change that because we know trickle-down theory works. We know trickle-up from thrifting works. Disney, much like any entertainment studio right now, is very much trying to hone in on Gen Z. And what do Gen Z love? Thrifting. And I think that's scary

in a consumer products world to talk about because it feels competitive. But it actually helps, know, drive just more, I want the idea of wearing and living that lifestyle and wearing products so it actually helps it. So I think that that is the niche, not to us, it's not niche because we're in it every day. I see you guys in the live streams every day, but niche to the rest of the world, like when I tell somebody that I collect vintage Disney, specifically Cowboy Mickey, specifically Mickey holding two guns, they're like, oh, that's so niche. And I'm like, not in the circles that I'm in. Right. But I do. think that there is a lot more, that that niche in particular under the Disney umbrella is something

that can and should be acknowledged in a bigger way. And I'm hoping it does eventually. And I'm hoping I can be part of that. I'm hoping Bobby Kim will be part of that, who is a good thought partner of mine as well in social. So yeah, that's a movement that I'm hoping to see picks up more through social. I love that. And I love that you mentioned that because that also sparks to like something I've been thinking about a lot with the lives is this elevation two of live selling and like live community engagement and even just watching all the people that we've gotten to meet by showing up, you know, four times a week, however often it is, and like actually meeting these people in person and how much that increases community. So it's really fun, I think, for us as marketers

to see that subculture and how it's growing and like what are things happening that make us so excited about it and I'm interested in this. And I think even just that community element around that niche too has been so fascinating to watch. Totally. We used to hear because I had implemented live Fridays at noon lounge fly where we would just kind of say, I mean, to be honest, it was a cheat way for us to show as many products as possible and say here's the whole next catalog coming. And then we were like, great, now we don't have to photograph all these ones. We've already got that. And it also was a way for us to get like, you know, the focus group response on how things

were selling so that we could take that back to the sales team and say, here's what the response was. If you want to go back out to the retailers and say, hey, we're thinking that this Lord of the Rings bag is going to do really well because our live stream was going bonkers over it. And then they would go and sell more units. And so it was so helpful in that whole circular process. But it definitely was that we'd have these lounge-by meetups and events and we'd hear people talking and saying, oh, my God, and I'm so-and-so from the live streams and because they would all have conversation as well. And as the person behind the camera on the live stream, to hear that in real life is always such a, yeah, it feels like you're really doing something right.

Yeah. Oh, it's so fun. Yeah. I feel like we have a million other questions for you. This has been so wonderful. So thank you for sharing kind of a look into. your just history and what you're kind of thinking about as a marketer. It's been wonderful. But of course, we would love to know how we can stay in touch with you. And then also just where we can see your work come to life on the different Disney channels as well. Yeah, I feel like we didn't really get into the like programs that I specifically work on today. So I'll tackle that in this. You can find me, my personal at happiest style on Earth, TikTok, Instagram, whatever. But then you can also find some of my programs that I work on on any Disney handles, the big Disney handle, big Pixar, Toy Story, Disney style, Disney family, all anything, Disney Japan, Disney Korea, every Disney handle that we, that exists globally. And I particularly work on anything that is a global campaign or a licensed collaboration.

So Lulu Lemon is an example of that. That's something that hit globally. on that social program from a licensee standpoint but then also the brand campaigns like a toy story 30th so if you see like color pop had a had a particular collection we just put out a unique glow collection so anything that is a licensed collaboration tied to a larger program right now it's world princess month leading up to world princess week at the end of the month so i don't think stuff starts rolling out until a little bit later but i also work on not as much as we talked about fashion i also work on lego and preschool and anything that's sort of in that licensing world uh just

the teams kind of all the marketing leads across um the global marketing strategy organization come to me and the only person who does social for global um which is not enough people we'll get to that another day um but so if anybody's working on a project um i think there's yeah i'm like trying not to say ones that are coming up because we work about 18 months out for some of them. So we're pretty deep into a lot of things coming up. The only things I don't work on are Marvel and Lucas films. So I am strictly Disney and Pixar. And that's sort of how you can tell. And if, yeah, if it's a global brand, an H&S, Zara, whatever, those are all ones that I touch as well. So, yes, anything on a Disney channel, you're like, so wait. Yeah, yeah. I'm excited to keep a look out for that.

like that's alana amazing thank you so much for doing this with us and just sharing everything this has been absolutely wonderful thanks for having me you guys are so fun now i just now we need to do one where we just kind of show our vintage collections and talk about our favorite pieces we'll do a side a side episode where it's like if you're interested in this we have a lot of the we literally have a rack really right here so oh my god the problem is is i don't have it beautifully laid out, like, some of the people in the live streams who have just, like, the walls of folded. Mine is a hot mess. That's okay.

We love it anyways. Awesome. Yeah. Thank you. Well, thanks, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, I would love your feedback. And if you're ready to take things to the next level, sign up for my weekly news letter in the show notes.

You'll get weekly career and marketing insights straight to your inbox. And if you have an idea for a future marketing happy hour episode, shoot me an email. Hello at Marketing HappyHR.com. Thank you again and I'll see you next Thursday.