The same year a human first trod the moon’s surface, Disney built a high-capacity ride system, called the Omnimover, into the Haunted Mansion. This shuttled people through the attraction instead of having them explore on foot. Daily revenue skyrocketed. Imagineers had a nickname for their innovation: a People Eater. People go in, money pours out.
Below you’ll learn a few lessons for digital marketers and product owners from this mid-century revenue powerhouse, as well as from a contemporary example, the Sphere is Las Vegas, shown above.
No one was harmed in Disney’s exchange of funny scares for vacation dollars. On the contrary: Every year since 1969, more people got what they wanted, returning home from Disneyland with more happy memories.
This win-win has been a hallmark of the Disney brand, and reminds me that when a product or service is centered on human delight, its margins are significant … and remain high, even with growing competition.
What makes a people eater?
A people eater isn’t just a high-throughput system. It’s one that converts volume into delight while minimizing friction. The Haunted Mansion’s innovation was removing a bottleneck, i.e., guests wandering freely. Their solution actually deepened the experience.
A people eater follows this two-part formula, in this order:
- Apply a relentless focus on every human moment
- Build a backend architecture that scales without watering down delight
The Omnimover accomplished that second part by systematically shifting and focusing the visitor’s attention on the next funny, spooky detail with clockwork precision.
In this way the Omnimover’s real innovation was empathy, not engineering.
Disney Imagineers solved a people problem — guests missing key scenes, bunching at popular spots, leaving disappointed — before they solved the capacity problem.
This connects to the core human-centered design principle of empathy: They observed real behavior, defined a root cause, and built around the human, not the technology.
Not surprisingly if you’ve followed this blog, it’s all about analyzing data to create something powerful.
A Las Vegas attraction doubles down on the same human-centered bet
Fifty years later, the Sphere follows this formula to great success. I recently had the pleasure to visit it — twice. The photos above are stills from videos I shot from my hotel room. In both cases I experienced the MGM classic The Wizard of Oz.
I returned for another screening because I had to bring my significant other, to share the joy I had felt that first time. I imagine repeat visits are also common for the Disney attraction, in spite of an age that places it squarely in the quaint Boomer cohort.
Like the Omnimover, the Sphere is built around an extreme version of a human sensory experience. Its goal is unprecedented immersion in live shows or cinematic events, at a scale that cannot be replicated elsewhere.
Both experiences justify a price premium precisely because they are unique. Most entertainment properties compete on content alone and lose margin as content commoditizes. The Sphere’s designers bet on the human body itself as the medium. Based on the gasps and cheers in the audience, I’d say they’re winning that bet.
Margins follow delight, not efficiency
People eaters aren’t just efficient.
Competing on operational efficiency alone is a race to the bottom. Conversely, competing on human delight, experiences that people feel rather than just consume, creates sustained pricing power.
True, this type of human centered design is neither easy nor cheap. But that scarcity in the marketplace helps recoup costs and move past break even to clear profits. (The Sphere has yet to turn a profit, but investors are confident enough that they are building spinoffs in a few other cities. As for Disney attractions, they are the only cash cow in their portfolio of holdings at the moment.)
Product owners take note:
Features alone are table stakes. The emotional resonance of using the product, coupled with its market scarcity, is the moat that protects future earnings.