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Brian’s family trip continues as the fam gets set for a trip to Disney’s California Adventure.

Transcription

You don’t have to be famous to be effective.

Hi I’m Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J Pombo Live.

Today I’m coming to you from Anaheim, California. I’m staying at the Paradise Pier Hotel and I have had a great day. We’ve had a couple of days, you know, if you’ve been following we’ve had a couple of days of chaos and turmoil. Not a bad way.

So one of the fun types of turmoil, okay.

Today we got to start our day in California Adventure Disney California Adventure is the strange wording of it, but just understand it’s the second Park in Anaheim, California, straight across the way from Disneyland from the original Disneyland that Walt Disney built.

It’s great that they’ve done a whole lot with it, it was started in a really odd way.

California Adventure on discussing will start in a very odd way. And they’ve maneuvered around it over the years to create somewhat of a storyline and to start having a newer character and so forth in there.

One of the major changes that they made was that they took a lot of the story of Walt’s life and created lands around it in order to make these lands that were originally created when the when California venture first came out and have a make a little more sense of the first place you walked down is a little bit like the main street, USA type deal.

Except they changed it to call it when a Vista Street and Buena Vista Street is the main concept of it is this is LA in you know the 20s, late 20s, early 30s, when Walt Disney first arrived on the scene.

He already had a rough go at it he had he had a situation where he completely lost a whole lot of his staff, he lost the character, he was working with everything else.

He was looking to try something brand new and so is in LA for the first time. And there’s all these casts of characters in places and everything that go along with it.

So this is where this, I’ve got this picture I want to show you. First off give you a little bit of background when we first walked down the street, it’s very quaint, it’s very cool. We’re going during the holiday time, so they’re playing Christmas music and Christmas music of that time period or that style at least.

And walking down is really nice.

In the center circle, kind of like a hub. What they have, because of COVID they have the characters that got Mickey Mouse, they had Minnie Mouse, and Goofy dressed in you know, 30 style garb.

But you can’t go up and hug them and talk to them and take pictures with them directly. And because of the whole COVID thing, so that got him kind of distant behind a chain-link fence and not chain link fence but a chain behind a chain where kids can’t come up and touch you but they’re encouraged to come up and take pictures.

So my kids all run up and take pictures with Goofy and they all run up and take pictures with Minnie Mouse. And then along the other side, I noticed two other characters who I the only reason I know who they are is that I’m a nerd about this type of thing.

I understand what the point is behind them but these two characters are standing there and not many people are taking notice of them at the time. I asked my wife I could go over she didn’t mind if I go over I don’t need to ask my wife’s permission but I asked her if she didn’t mind if I go over for a second and take a selfie with these folks.

So here you can see the picture of me with them.

The reason why I took this picture is that it all of a sudden hit me it’s like this is so interesting how these characters were created specifically for this park specifically for this area and most people aren’t even going to know who they are so that the gentleman dresses as a character played by multiple cast members.

Different actors who have played the part of officer Calvin Blue, and he is a character made specifically for that area of Buena Vista Street.

And he walks up and down and would chat people up and talk to people as if he was in that era and is very much a caricature.

Then the other one is Donna, the dog lady, also a character that wanders around talks to people, but because the COVID thing, they don’t do that, so they have to come out and just stand there.

Well, most people don’t know who they are. So they’re not going to go up and take their picture or go talk to them. But they’re there anyway.

So it’s an interesting thing. But besides that, I wanted to point something out bringing it back to business, because that’s what we talk a lot about on here, right. So one of the things that I discussed in my book. 9 Ways to Amazon-Proof Your Business, which you can get a free copy at AmazonProofBook.com.

And I apologize that I’m, I’m yawning, it’s been a rough couple days, just kids and everything else. And I’m up late right now, past when my brain is should be allowed to be able to continue functioning.

But my book, 9 Ways Amazon-Proof Your Business, you can get a free copy of Amazon proof book.com. In it, I discussed the concept of being somebody or becoming a somebody if you will.

Whether you are you aren’t, there’s importance be behind being one. And so having a personality that people can connect with, is so very important. Even if they don’t necessarily consider you a celebrity, Goofy, Minnie Mouse, these are celebrities, these are people that are older than most of us.

It’s just really interesting, you the dichotomy between those two, yeah, they can sell, you could sell coffee mugs, and stuffed animals to this day with these characters on and you’re not gonna be able to do that very easily.

With Officer Calvin Blue, and Donna, the dog lady, but the importance is, is that they exist, they were created out of thin air to fill a void.

The same thing can be done in your business, I don’t care what kind of business it is, you can create a character out of thin air, whether it’s real or not, whether it’s yourself, which is always nice, because people light genuine, even if you’re, you’re nothing flashy, or anything else, if you’re genuine people really enjoy that.

But whether it’s yourself or whether it’s a completely made-up character, if it’s interesting enough, if it holds attention. And I say that in the sense of being made up, if it isn’t made up, just the fact that you’re genuine will draw attention. But if it’s made up, it’s got to be interesting.

And so if it’s an interesting character that has some color to it, and some in something to keep your attention, people will go along with it, even if they know it’s a complete fabrication.

You know, people go along with the Geico Gecko, even though they know this is a cartoon on the screen, or, at the very worst-case scenario, they, they don’t think that a gecko has been trained to speak English and, and sit there and promote insurance. So there you go.

It’s very important to have that personality somewhere in your marketing, you can, you can do a whole lot without it. But have that it handles a whole lot of the heavy lifting that you would have to do otherwise.

It’s very difficult, where if you can add that to it, you’ve added a dimension, that’s, that can’t be replaced. I mean, to this day, they haven’t found a replacement for Colonel Sanders over at KFC. And that’s because it was such a unique character that this man had developed. He’s both himself and he’s a flamboyant character.

You can’t replace that.

So just a quick tip, quick ideas of how to think about go check out my book for more details. Or stay tuned here. Wherever you’re watching or listening to this.

I love to hear what you think about characters, and whether you think it’s something that your business can need if it isn’t what you think it needs. If you think there’s no possible way that you could include personality in your business.

Leave me a comment wherever you’re watching or listening to this. I’d love to hear from you. That’s all I got for tonight. You have a good one.

Get out there and let the magic happen.