As Essence Festival of Culture celebrates its 30th year, the Walt Disney Company has returned to join the festivities this year as the brand focuses on touchstone events and experiences such as We Came To Play and Celebrate Soulfully. Black Girl Nerds had the opportunity to sit down with Sybil Crum, Vice President of Marketing and Commercial Strategy for the Disneyland Resort. We discussed the value of the Black audiences, experiences and moments at Disney parks and resorts as well as what Sybil Crum and her team is doing to help create a more inclusive space for patrons.
Tell me about your role at the Walt Disney company?
I lead marketing and commercial for Disneyland. Essentially what that means is, how do we share who we are in marketing? We call it the five P’s. It’s about product, price, promotion, place and people. It’ll be 20 years for me in August, and it has been just an amazing experience. I started off with the same Vacation Club, I was there for seven and a half years, I transitioned into a role within sales leading the marketing team for sales with a bicoastal team on each coast in California and in Florida. Which means leading the marketing for our trade partners and how they talk about our product across the world.
We Came To Play is a marketing initiative that Disney has created that reaches out to Black consumers and media. Can you share more about your role in this and how it currently ties into events like Essence Fest?
We came to play is our open invitation. It’s our love letter to our community and to us. We started this initiative in 2020. When I was at Walt Disney World, we were doing stuff focused on Black consumers and making the invitation but it was really about being consistent, being relevant, being timely, but also doing it in a way that feels like us. And so I’m a 90s kid and so I always remember FUBU (for us by us). And I love the thought of the people behind the scenes creating something for people that look like us. And that’s what we came to play means to me. It’s being behind the scenes. It’s bringing something to light that we’ve been working on now for four years. And it’s an invitation and not just an invitation to come to Disney but to do Disney in a way that is relevant for your family. If you’re at Disneyland, you can meet Black Panther or the Dora Milaje but you can also meet Sam Wilson, our Captain America. So not only do you see a product that is relevant for you, but also just relevant for your family, for kids who say “I love Spider-Man”, then you can meet Spider-Man at Disneyland. And so that’s what We Came To Play means to me. It’s invitational, but it’s really Invitational in a way that’s relevant and impactful for our people.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is the first time we see an amusement park attraction dedicated to Black Disney Princess. Tell me about the importance of this ride and the experiences Disney Parks are creating to inform more fans of The Princess and the Frog about this new ride.
When I think about Tiana, obviously she’s important and impactful for our community, we get to see ourselves. There’s nothing like sitting in New Orleans and realizing that it represents the people, the culture, the food, it represents New Orleans. It also represents an evolution in how we think about storytelling. It is innovative from a technological perspective, because it does feel very lifelike to do so. She’s waving to me and she’s welcoming me in. But what I love about Tiana is also that she’s universally relevant, hard working, compassionate, resilient. That’s who we are as people. And those things really resonate with everyone. When we think about the attraction, it’s certainly a love letter to New Orleans and our community, but it’s also an invitation for everyone to see themselves in her values and her virtues.
Celebrate Soulfully is a showcase of experiences that celebrate Black heritage and culture through music, food and art. What inspired creating these immersive experiences and why is it important to the Walt Disney Company?
I have to give honor to Sivonne Davis, one of our leaders at Walt Disney World, coming out of COVID. That was one of the first big experiences that they launched. That was new. And again, it’s about seeing yourself. It’s about the ability to have an experience at Walt Disney World or at Disneyland in our case that is relevant for your family. You know, you may have a five year old that’s like, “ if I don’t meet Spider-Man, this trip has not been awesome”. That’s how the kids are. If you don’t do that one thing that’s it, and so Celebrate Soulfully is what we call an evergreen activation, it’s always on. You can come and meet the characters. You can come experience the attractions, you can come and experience our food. When I think about Tiana’s Palace, you cannot tell me that’s not soul food. It’s New Orleans cuisine, but it’s soul food and it’s just made with heart and you and you see that in everything that we do.
Connecting with Black audiences is something I think is incredibly valuable for companies to do as Black consumers not only have increased spending power from year to year, but seeing ourselves reflected in entertaining and fantastical experiences is the key to inclusion. What is Disney’s key strategy to connect with Black audiences?
It starts with relevancy. We want to make sure that you can see yourself in the stories that we tell and that it’s high quality. If you think about all the things that Disney has under the umbrella of what we call big D for Disney, we have ESPN, we have FX, we have Hulu, we have the Disney Channel, we have National Geographic, we have the Disney parks, we have Disney Cruise Lines, but what connects us all is that we are in the entertainment business and we are in the storytelling business. They’re really about bringing you in and letting you experience it. Whereas a lot of times, we’re taking the stories from the studios from our networks and we’re bringing those stories to life. And so when I think about what’s most important is telling a story that is authentic, that’s relevant. That helps not only entertain but also expand your thinking. When you come to the Disney park, you get to put a stamp on a passport in a way that some people may not ever experience. They may not ever get to go to Africa, but when you are at Animal Kingdom and on a Kilimanjaro Safari, or when you come to Lunar New Year here at Disney California Adventure Park, you get to experience another culture because you are immersed in the food and the entertainment and in us and with the people because we have a lot of entertainment that really speaks to the culture that we’re celebrating. And I think that is what’s most important about celebrating all of our initiatives that we get to expand people’s apertures in a way that they probably didn’t expect from walking into a theme park gate. Because again, we’re not in the theme park business. We are in the storytelling business, and we want to help you experience that.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is currently open at Walt Disney World and is coming soon to Disneyland.
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