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John Thomson  

Club Penguin: Part Two

For those of you that missed Club Penguin: Part One yesterday, here is the link:

Club Penguin: Part One

I will now continue my interview with Lane Merrifield, Executive Vice President of Club Penguin.

JT: I felt good walking around your offices today.

Merrifield: “So did I. And that’s part of it. Like everyone, we have our struggles and things to work through, but at the core of who we are, we always want it to be positive because that is the experience we want the kids to have. We want them to feel safe, warm and friendly. This online environment for many of them could be an escape, especially if they have rough home lives, have a tough time in school, you know, whatever is going on in their life. Our virtual world gives them an opportunity, even if it is just for a few minutes a day, a half hour, an hour a day, to not escape (meaning like I’m going to watch TV and turn off my brain) but really to dive into a world that is still very social. They have to engage their brains, they have to think, they have problem solving, they have to be able to type and read and communicate. It is very social. It is no different than other experiences they may have in their life, except this one happens to be very protective and very fun and very friendly.”

We do have a situation out there today where mom and dad are passing each other in the hallway because they both have to work or and mom is driving to soccer and dance class and whatever. They don’t eat together anymore. We as a family sat down and had dinner with our three kids and talked to each other.

Merrifield: “I know. It is one of the staples we try to hold to as well. Even for me, in my schedule I’ll be booked solid up until 5:30 p.m. because at that point it’s time to go home. You know lots of folks don’t have that opportunity and a lot of folks do have to work long hours and are in these tough situations.”

We had, not to waste your time, but when we lived in Toronto – because I travelled so much – we had this friendly little restaurant that on Sunday morning we used to go there. We had a family meal and everyone said what they did all week. We did that every Sunday morning. It was really very, very important to us.

Merrifield: “That’s great. We ask our kids everyday what are two great things that happened today, and one frustrating thing that happened today. And, you know, then we just walk through the room together. It is so important - even for us. You know what is neat, one of the things that I love about Club Penguin, and we’ve heard this from parents all the time, parents who travel and stuff, is this ability for them to connect with their kids, to have that same kind of experience, even if they happen to be halfway across the world from each other. We have parents who talk about how they would try and call on the phone and maybe spend 5 minutes on the phone, or 3 minutes on the phone with their child, or maybe 30 seconds sometimes, and not be able to really connect with their child in the way that they would be able to in person. But when the parent was willing to jump into the world of the kid, and jump into, you know, whether it was Club Penguin or any of these experiences, and go to where the kids were, they said: 'We spent hours having snow ball fights, and sledding together. And I’d hear all about their day through their penguins talking to each other.' They said it was such a great opportunity to spend time with their kids in a way that being 10 hours away they wouldn’t have been able to do.”

Where are the other partners now?

Merrifield: "Lance is still involved, he is travelling a bit these days but definitely still in the creation process of where we’re going, what we’re doing. Dave is the original founder of Club Penguin, New Horizon Productions, and isn’t as involved.”

He is a well known name in town.

Merrifield: “Yes. He should be. He is definitely, probably one of my best mentors in life. We call him 'Yoda' not because of his age, but because every few weeks he’ll drop in, he’ll grab a cup of coffee with whomever happens to be in the hall, and just impart wisdom, and have a great time listening to them, and hearing what they like and hearing what they don’t like."

So he has nothing to do with the business anymore?

Merrifield: "Not the day-to-day business. He still plugs in and we’ll grab lunch and coffee and he’ll give me all sorts of great advice. But the daily business is managed by myself and the team here."

And the next step, because you’ve just explained to me, the next step for Disney Online?

Merrifield: “We just opened up the fourth floor here. We already had the fifth and the third floor."

One of the things that came out of our session with you was the fact that Disney doesn’t use the medium to promote anything. I mean, they’ve got movies being played right now in the theatre and they don’t say anything about them.

Merrifield: “Nothing. It’s not being used as a marketing tool. I mean they have other websites for marketing or other things for marketing. These are really purposefully meant to be entertainment devices just on their own. And it is. As the web is evolving, for a long time the web was seen as a billboard. It was a digital billboard that people just threw up ads on all over the place. For a season it made sense. But more and more it’s becoming a solid entertainment medium. So the same way that they wouldn’t advertise our website in their movies, half way through their movies they don’t have a character say: 'Go play Club Penguin'. In our website and online experiences and entertainment experiences you don’t want to dilute the story by mixing those things. The business itself is very self-sustaining and generates a good strong bottom line for the company so they don’t see a need to try."

How did you arrive at that name? Club Penguin.

Merrifield: “Club Penguin. The original characters were always penguins, and that’s a whole other story in its own right."

They’re easier to animate?

Merrifield: “They are actually easier to animate for sure. A waddle is easier to animate than a walk is. And also, Lance who created the penguins originally like that so you could put them on a white background and it’s normal because it’s snow. So you didn’t always necessarily have all these backgrounds filled with stuff. Although, now they are quite filled. But the penguins are all about community. And we love the idea of the penguins. If you have seen the movie “March of the Penguins” documentary, they have to work together to survive, so it is all about community, it is all about self-sacrifice for the betterment of everyone. And so we really wanted to encourage kids that it’s not just about them – it’s about working together in a community. And so that’s kind of the reason for the penguins. In terms of the name, we originally were like, you know, we wanted it to have a sense of community. So we thought about Penguin Club, we thought about Penguin Community, or Penguin World - I mean all sorts of things. Some of it we ran into not being able to get the URL or the name was taken or was being used for other things. Club Penguin we thought, well you think of like a Club Med being fun, it’s a vacation spot, but there is also a club type experience. So we decided on Club Penguin and it was available."

It certainly worked.

Merrifield: “Definitely. And the funny thing, the logo had actually been designed for another project Lance was working on. I think it was called Snow Blasters or something. And Lance came in and said, 'I think if I take, Snow (was four letters) and Blasters (was around the same), so if we replace Snow Blasters with Club Penguin I think this could be a great logo.' And he designed the logo. So he not only programmed the original, did the original code on it, but he also designed the original logo and did the original art work on it. And he is a multi-talented guy that way. And it was great and it is still the logo we use today.”

What’s the future

Merrifield: “I oversee all of the Disney online studios – both the studio up here in Canada and in LA. There we‘re spending a lot of time working together and bringing unity to the studios, rather than running as totally separated isolated groups. Really, our products are global. So we thought, how can our products be global, but be isolated to certain areas. So we spend a lot of time really working together and reorganizing. Frankly, it's around continuing to bring our products together, in line and consistent. So a child who plays Pixie Hollow or World of Cars has the same experience as playing Club Penguin. The entertainment will be different, but if they have a support need, or they have a question, or they need to ask for help, that experience should be the same level and the same quality all around. So there has been a lot of work in bringing that together. Where we go from here – we’re always working on new products and new ideas and new things. We have worked and continue to roll out new languages for Club Penguin.”

You said there were 190 countries, right. All out of this office? This is the headquarters for it?

Merrifield: “Right but we have offices all over the world satellite offices all over the world who are managing the support for those areas."

So in other words, wherever you indicated today, in Spain or somewhere, Spanish people are making it work for the Spanish kids.

Merrifield: "Yes, the content is the same all the languages are the lens – which is actually kind of neat, because it means the kids are actually all playing together. They are all playing in the same world, but one sees that world in Spanish, and one in English and so on. It’s just kind of a lens that gets put in front of the world. But then we wanted local support for those kids. So then in their country, if they call someone on the phone it is a local person picking up the phone and helping them but they are all our employees. We don’t do any outsourcing. They are all inside full-time employees that happen to be located in our office."

Don't miss tomorrow's conclusion to this exclusive Club Penguin interview!


More John Thomson articles

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About the Author

John Thomson is the Okanagan's pre-eminent business columnist writing his column, Rumours and Things, for over 24 years. Plugged in to the valley's who's who, John keeps his readers coming back for more with his straight talk and optimistic perspective on where we are headed next.

When John is not writing his column, he runs a sixteen year old think tank called the Executive Roundtable and holds his popular "Thomson Presents" quarterly business speaker seminars.

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