One day a small bunch of trendsetting bees in Seattle are sipping decaf mocha latte nectar in a local coffeehouse, and before you know it, Starbucks is a national chain with 1,500 stores and counting. The hive has chosen. That's how Nike has been able to sell shoes to the jocks and their moms at the same time. For the 35 million subscribers who receive it, the channel is their most intimate and regular connection to the wonderful world of Disney. If, as Nelson says, the point of discontinuity research is to expose cultural ruptures, then the channel's research team struck gold.
Family life is hard enough nowadays, they said, without their being criticized.
What they wanted from us was to be celebrated, to be inspired. In 1997, they began to revamp the program schedule. The old logo, a faceless Mickey Mouse silhouette framed by an abstract TV, went first. In its place there is now a cartoon of a TV set wearing mouse ears. From inside the set pops out Mickey, fully rendered, belly bouncing Steamboat Willie-style, almost leaping from the TV right into the viewer's living room.