Rob and I jointly stumbled across this idea as we drove back from the Undisclosed Location last fall, and I decided to share it with the world as testament to what intelligent and perhaps slightly brainwashed marketers we are.
Near Space Mountain in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, there is an “attraction” that has languished for a million years called “The Carousel of Progress.” That nobody ever goes in there is illustrated by the fact that Progress seems to have crashed to a halt in the late 1980s, but the idea is that one gets to witness the entire twentieth century via the strides Americans have made in their technology, and how our lives have changed accordingly. These scenes, acted out by robots, tend to focus on home appliances since G.E. was the sponsor of this extravaganza, so they tend to lay on ideas like “How The Electric Stove Changed Civilization” fairly thickly.
When I was a kid, this used to be accompanied by a snappy theme song that went, “Now is the time / Now is the best time / Now is the best time of your life!” The current version, which begins, “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow!” sort of loses its impact when one realizes that “tomorrow” in this circular universe is really 1992.
In any case, Rob and I decided that Disney’s largest and greatest stockholder, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Inc., might want to take a closer look at the potential for this golden oldie as a fun marketing tool for the future. An Apple-sponsored “Carousel of Progress” might begin at the time of the slide rule, whiz by the calculator and the punch card, and drop us into 1984 when the Macintosh first made its dazzling appearance. From there, the robots can show us how life has really changed for the better over the past several decades, and how Apple has led the charge in redefining our expectations of technology, artistry, and entertainment. The last scene can be ever changing, theorizing how Apple technology might look twenty years in the future.
The souvenir shop in this attraction could be a mini Apple Store selling their regular products as well as collectors’ editions customized with mouse ears (imagine a glowing white Mickey on the back of a MacBook or a polka-dotted iPod preloaded with songs from all the Disney movies). I can’t think of a better way to introduce Middle America to the company we latte-drinking coastal elites sold our souls to years ago and also keep a current face on Disney’s aging offerings.
If there is justice in this world, the next call on my iPhone will be either from Madison Avenue or Cupertino, California.
