233067
John Thomson  

Club Penguin: Part Three

For those of you that missed Club Penguin: Part One and Club Penguin Part Two here are the links:

Club Penguin: Part One

Club Penguin: Part Two

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

You are answering 10,000 e-mails a day?

Merrifield: “Between five and 10,000 e-mails a day. And those aren’t automated by the way because people will send out an automated response, you press one button you send a hundred thousand and it’s not a big deal. But these are actual replies to actual e-mails that come in. We also reply to a few hundred letters that come in everyday. We still get letters from kids as well.

We also answer hundreds of calls every day as well – I don’t know the exact number on that. The call center right now is managing all of the products, all of the billing support and all of the calls for all of our Disney online products – Club Penguin and all the others.”

Did you ever think in your whole life that you would work for Disney?

Merrifield: “Well, you know, ironically enough, my very first job was at Disneyland. I’m Canadian born, but I moved with my family when I was four-years-old down to Southern California and we lived there I grew up there and I went to high school there. So it was during my high school years I worked in the Lion King parade at Disneyland. It was actually quite formative. And definitely people who are big fans of Disneyland will see a lot of similarities in Club Penguin because there is a lot of inspiration that we took from that experience there. When I graduated and I came back up to Canada after university, I never thought I’d work for Disney again but no, I never imagined all of this. We just set out to build a fun world for our kids and our friend's kids and we thought if a few other people out there like it, and if we can at least keep it sustainable we can keep it open and clearly if we can’t afford to, you know, we can’t keep it open. So that was our original goal and then as it continued to grow we wanted to make sure that it had the same quality. We approached it as parents and we wanted to make sure that we always were approaching it as parents first and foremost."

You have to think that way.

Merrifield: “It is part of why, had we approached it as a typical business it probably would have been smarter – put ourselves at less risk, get some outside funding, bring in some VCs. But then immediately it turns into a business exercise. And there is nothing wrong with that, but that just wasn’t the heart and the intent behind what we were doing. Even now my seven-year-old plays all the time and nieces and nephews play all the time and it is important for me to make sure that as we are keeping the world as safe. It is not just for some nameless, faceless kids out there, some numbers on a screen. It is safe for my kids. It’s safe for your grandkids or anyone’s kids out there to play."

You know, it’s funny, a lot of people won’t believe me when I say this, but it’s up to them to believe it or not – honestly, we sat in a room one day and said we can’t afford to market, we don’t have any marketing money. But we believed enough that people were over-marketed, and tired of being over-promised and under delivered. Kids especially – so much of a kid’s world is over promising and under delivering, from the commercials they watch on TV, to the situations at school to whatever. We said, you know what? If we can come in and make it as fun as we possibly can, launch on time, because when we say we are going to launch something and release something, we do it. We come in and do what we say when it comes to being fun and make it as safe as possible – or safer than anything else out there and simply do what we say we are going to do when it comes to being safe, then we think the rest of it will take care of itself. If we simply execute and make the quality so much better than what anyone else can find, we are hoping that people will tell their friends about it. And that’s exactly what happened. On the school yards kids were telling their friends about this experience, and about how fun it was and how exciting it was, and how creative it was. And at the coffee shops moms were telling their friends about this world and how safe it was and how friendly it was and they logged in and they tested it and they bragged about what a great, fun world it was for their kids to play in and how interactive it was. Instead of kids sitting in front of a TV, you know, passively watching TV, they are interacting and they are engaging and all of the cousins are getting together from around Canada, or around the US, or around the world, and able to all interact together. And that’s what the marketing was –the word of mouth, the viral nature of it was pretty amazing. And now, 90% of its growth comes from word of mouth.”

The kids could take over the world.

Merrifield: “They are, they are. They absolutely are – and especially when it comes to these connected mediums. I was recently in a meeting with an executive at Disney, and he said you know, the whole world is getting smarter. Dumb devises, he said, are getting smart. And smart devices are getting smarter. You think about a cell phone that was smart 10 years ago – it was connected and it is now a whole computer. And it goes beyond just a computer and is touch sensitive and all sorts of other things.

I was meeting recently with Al Stober and he was sharing this incredible story of how he remembers having to hitch up the horses to go into town. I was asking about Kelowna and what it was like. And he said: “I remember that you only went about four miles in any direction and that was pretty much your whole world and now I can jump on a plane and be anywhere in the world within a matter of hours,” and just what that was like to see in his lifetime.

Even for me, it’s of course a shorter lifetime, but I remember the first Nintendo that came out – the first time you plugged a computer into your TV screen that had chips in it, and were able to play a game to now, my kids, who will grab my phone in a restaurant and you know, using their fingers, not just play all sorts of games, but they could be ranking their high scores with their cousins all over the world and friends and neighbours. And as long as all of that happens within a safe and secure environment, that still has people watching over it, then I think it’s great. I love the fact that my kids’ world is going to be so much bigger. I had a pen pal who I remember was able to write back and forth to – we probably exchanged about three letters before we gave up and fell out of touch with each another. But I remember how novel that was to think that I’m talking to someone around the world. In this playground and this virtual playground, kids from around the world are talking all the time and not only that, they are all speaking their own language and it can be translated across the world. So my child could grow up with half of his friends being from school and half of his friends being all over the world.”

It’s mind boggling really when you think of it.

Merrifield: “It is. I mean, the world is getting smaller. And you think of even what that does for things like international relations – think of generations that grew up with it just being an “us” and “them”, because them was never a face, was never a name. I don’t want to get too altruistic thinking that somehow it’s going to help solve global crisis. But I will say it is going to be interesting to watch a generation that has meaningful relationships with people from countries all over the world – how that is going to change our society going forward. It has to have an impact – how big or small is yet to be seen."

The more tolerant to what the real world is all about..

Merrifield: "That’s exactly it, because the world is a world and we can either shelter them, or they can learn very quickly – not just the differences and how to value those differences they may eat different foods and play different games, but more than that, the similarities. I still remember, I think I was watching a video or something, and I thought I wonder who teaches, I was young, and I thought I wonder who teaches kids how to laugh all the same all around the world. And you learn there are unique, there are similarities and everyone laughs and everyone smiles, everyone frowns, everyone cries. You don’t have to be taught that – it’s not my culture that taught me how to laugh this way and your culture how to laugh that way. And I think for kids to realize foreign or alien doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Those words almost disappear. Now it’s my friend from Spain or my friend from England, or my friend from Australia.”


More John Thomson articles

232482
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.

Have a comment, question, or tip for John? 

E-mail John at
[email protected]
or send him a fax at 250-764-8255.

 



227730
The views expressed are strictly those of the author and not necessarily those of Castanet. Castanet does not warrant the contents.

Previous Stories



227983