Where all your dreams come true — How Disney creating memories

Ali Eskandari
Create Great Experiences
2 min readFeb 15, 2021

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The story of how Disney creating memorable experiences by constant innovation and paying attention to details.

Disney Land

Walt as a young artist was used to draw cartoons for different publications. While Walt was working for the Kansas City Film Ad Company he becomes interested in creating animations.

He started Laugh-O-Gram Studio. They created a live-action/animation called Alice’s Wonderland. But the studio went bankrupt in 1923.

Walt made some money by shooting a film and selling his movie camera to pay for a one-way train ticket.

Mickey Mouse

Virginia, who played Alice, and collaborator Ub Iwerks joined Walt in California. They decided to create a series of animations.

In 1928, Steamboat Willie released and Walt introduced Mickey Mouse to the world.

How Disney Creating Memories

Disney from the get-go committed to creating great experiences — memories.

Disney theme park and Disney’s animations are like entering another world.

Attention to the details is what makes these experiences remarkable. From sounds to services, every part of Disney is meticulously designed.

Smellitzer

Disney Imagineers invented a Smellitzer to pump scents into the environment.

That’s why in Disney World the main street smells like fresh popcorn, while some attractions have a different scent.

Trash cans

Even the trash can is part of the experience. In Disney World, they come in different shapes and colors.

Trash cans are placed within 30 feet of each other based on research that people will only walk 30 feet to throw something away — that’s why Disney theme parks are spick and span.

Every detail matter

Disney cares about every detail and removes things that will hurt the experience.

This isn’t on the shoulders of just a few people, creating great experiences is the responsibility of every employee.

It’s teamwork. It’s the culture of the company.

Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again, and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do — Walt Disney.

This is how you can get started:

  • People don’t see their journey like you, customers see it as a whole and even a tiny part can affect the entire experience. Constantly do user research and try to get feedback on the customers’ touchpoints. Then, improve the experience accordingly.
  • Always go further than customers’ expectations. Innovate like Disney Imagineers. This way you can create memories to ignite the word of mouth.

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