Gregory Ebbecke

All I have to say is that I still think you’re a HufflePuff and it’s not such a bad thing!

Wow, Greg! When you mentioned your experience at Be Our Guest last night it totally resonated with my own. I’m actually floored because I didn’t know about the Wired article or what was supposed to be happening before we went. Our experience went like this:
We booked on my Disney experience with our bands and meal plans months in advance like everyone else. When we arrived early, it seemed like it threw them off (in context, it was only 1/2 hour early). The experience was just like any other chain restaurant. Nothing special. We waited in a huge queue of people surrounding the restaurant entrance over the bridge. We got sat by a hostess an hour later, not at a table of our choosing but that was fine enough. We did not have the option to pre-order before our scheduled meal and have it all arrive seamlessly. Nor did it arrive in any special way other than from someone’s hands. Like I said, a server took our order for every portion of the meal. I remember it being a REALLY long meal – like 3 hours – and my kids feel asleep at the table. It was certainly not frictionless and special. We did get to meet and take pictures with the beast though, which made the meal worth it!!
Suggestions for a more frictionless experience would be not overbooking in the first place so that the technology actually had enough bandwidth to work!!!

That is really funny – not that you got stuck – but the thought of being on the It’s a Small World ride, getting stuck, and then having to listen to that cloying music for 20 minutes. That’s truly terrifying. I imagine being stuck in the Briar Patch wasn’t a great time either, though. Sorry that happened to you!

It’s been a few years since I’ve been to Disney but I’m glad I missed out on this experience, sounded like a nightmare! My experience with Disney has been fairly great with the magic bands. The last time my family and I went, we stayed at the Yacht Club on a special little floor that you could use your magic bands to access and it was equipped with lots of food, snacks and drinks. We often times rely so much on technology we forget the room for human error which creates disastrous situations such as this. I laughed out loud at the vegan being an “allergy”. I also can’t believe the waiter didn’t bend over backwards to accommodate the daughter’s vegan meal, it always seems like Disney workers go above and beyond to ensure guests are happy. How do you feel about the rest of your experience with magic bands throughout the park? I found them to be convenient and pretty seamless for the most part. I especially loved not having to dig into a backpack or something every time I wanted to make a purchase. I definitely need a trip to Disney once COVID has calmed down!

I am a Floridian and have been to Walt Disney World many times. Every time we go, there seems to be a fail moment. Years ago, when my kids were young, we decided to take advantage of the Florida resident promotion and head up for a long weekend. After a long day at the park with three young children, we went to the Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner. Once we got settled at the table, our Disney server greeted us with “Welcome to the Magic Kingdom, how can I make your dreams come true.” My wife said, “I am dreaming of a cold beer.” To that, our server answered, “that is the only dream I cannot fulfill, we don’t serve alcohol in the Magic Kingdom.” Fast forward, the rules have changed, and we had a beer at dinner there last year.

This is perfect timing. I was looking into registering for some excel classes to learn some new tricks–and this is even better! Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing Greg! I feel conflicted about the ios 14 update in the sense that, I work for a data solutions company and things like GDPR got the ball rolling for information privacy, making our business even more valuable. But the new IOS will make my job as a marketer potentially a heck of a lot harder.

I look forward to the change for my own personal privacy reasons, cause lets be honest who loves being bombarded by ads about something you searched for months ago in which you have no interest in buying ever again? I would love to have control more over the ads I see and I would have the flexibility to decide who I see ads from.

As a professional, I think this is an opportunity for us to get creative in reaching our audience in other ways. I see this leading to influencers having a bigger role in advertising products to reach new audiences. I also see it leading to more loyalty among customers, in which in the long run isn’t that what brands value most?

I’m so glad you shared this with us in class, I usually am up to date on these type of things and between work & COVID life, it’s been tough keeping up. I really wonder how this will affect marketers and the advertising industry. I remember someone mentioned in class it may be a good thing because we don’t want to speak to people who don’t want to hear from us. However, what about consumers who aren’t marketers and will just by default keep this option off? I did see that Apple has decided to delay this roll out until next year so that delays the fight with Facebook (or Facebook won the fight). I agree with your above comment, “God help us if we’re in the hands of influencers…” I would hope this doesn’t drive us toward more influencer marketing. I am very curious to see how this will affect us as marketers and the industry. I can understand from a consumer standpoint wanting to keep your activity private, it creeps some people out to be tracked around the internet. I personally always share my data because I know the benefit it can have. This will definitely be an interesting one to keep an eye on.