UPDATE: It's official. Disney has named MT Carney as its head of marketing. “MT represents a unique type of marketing executive -- she has built global teams, can market a product across multiple platforms and has firsthand knowledge of new media and its effectiveness in reaching consumers,” Disney Studios chairman Rich Ross said in a statement Wednesday morning. “Just as we have looked at ways to restructure how we create and distribute our movies, we also needed to hire someone like MT, who can lead our incredibly creative global marketing teams and ensure that our films reach audiences around the world.”
The full release is below.
PREVIOUSLY:
EXCLUSIVE
Disney Studios Chairman Rich Ross has found his Cinderella.
The head of marketing -- the missing piece in the puzzle of Walt Disney Pictures' new regime -- will be named this Thursday, WaxWord has learned.
And her name is MT Carney (Hollywood copywriters: no periods in the MT).
Carney will replace Jim Gallagher, the industry veteran who was removed way back in November. She is a Hollywood unknown: a senior executive and a founding partner at Naked Communications, a New York City-based media planning and strategy.
The rounding out of the executive team comes not a moment to soon, as Disney has just come off a huge worldwide marketing effort with "Alice in Wonderland," and is about to face the summer juggernaut season with "Prince of Persia" and "Toy Story 3."
The move completes Ross's full sweep of Disney longtime executives who had been at the studio, in some cases for decades, under Dick Cook, who was ousted by CEO Bob Iger in September. The replacements include many new faces, most of them unfamiliar to movie insiders.
Ross has moved to shift the studio's focus to a global one, and an approach that weaves in all of Disney's various divisions - from theme parks to consumer products to ABC and online. He moved Bob Chapek, formerly head of home entertainment, to oversee the journey of Disney content across theatrical
exhibition, home entertainment, pay TV, digital formats and other new media.
Disney executives say that this new strategy has been implemented successfully already, with the division between domestic and international publicity, for example, competely erased. Both now report to Michelle Sewell.
But the critical missing piece has been that of marketing, and it clearly has been a struggle to fill this position, and rumors have suggested that whoever took over this key position would not be from Hollywood. Up to now, Ross himself has had to run much of the marketing efforts.
A knowledgeable indvidual said that Ross had been planning to announce Carney's appointment at his first meeting with the media on Thursday.
Carney's LinkedIn page describes her as owner of Naked Communications. It also says she was at The Ogilvy Group between 2003 and 2006 where she was the worldwide planning director.
