The Walt Disney Company, which has been rearranging its organizational furniture with some regularity of late, has given one of its longtime executives a broader mandate and a new set of bosses.
Joss Hastings, a veteran of the company, has been named senior vice president for marketing at Disney Consumer Products, the division responsible for all those plush toys, themed housewares, and character-emblazoned merchandise that make their way from Disney properties to retail shelves around the world. The appointment follows Disney's recent decision to move the consumer products operation out of its Experiences division and tuck it under the Studios umbrella, now known as Disney Entertainment.
Ms. Hastings will report to two executives: Asad Ayaz, who serves as chief marketing and brand officer for Disney, and Lisa Baldzicki, who is president of Disney Consumer Products. (The dual-reporting structure, a feature of many large media organizations, tends to produce either creative tension or jurisdictional confusion, depending on whom you ask.)
In her expanded role, Ms. Hastings will be charged with unifying marketing efforts across regions and coordinating with the company's various franchise, studio, and business partners — a task that, at a company with Disney's breadth of intellectual property, is rather like being asked to conduct an orchestra where each section insists on playing from its own score.
The move is the latest in a series of marketing-related organizational changes at Disney, which has been reshaping its corporate structure as it navigates the competing demands of its streaming ambitions, its theatrical film business, and its sprawling theme park and merchandise operations.
For Ms. Hastings, the new title represents both a vote of confidence from leadership and an acknowledgment that selling a stuffed Stitch doll in Shanghai and a Spider-Man lunchbox in Cincinnati may, in fact, require some centralized coordination.
Original story published in adweek.com: "Disney Continues Marketing Moves, Joss Hastings to Lead Consumer Products Marketing"