The Beat: Hey Mickey!

Welcome to The Beat by Rockstar CMO. I’m Ian Truscott, a 3xCMO, trusted advisor, strategy consultant and Chief Bottle Washer at Rockstar CMO. In this newsletter, I’d like to share a mix of what’s caught my eye from our community, our podcast and our street knowledge blog.

Hi there, and Happy New Year!

Thanks for opening this email and if you’ve opened it before, you’ll know I use a song title in the subject line. And this week, I have used the news that the early depictions of Mickey Mouse are now out of copyright and I am going with “Hey Mickey” from Toni Basil, and I should probably apologize for that!

We will, of course, see a lot of Mickey’s Steamboat Willie inspired marketing, and plenty of commentary, you know what we marketers are like (and this one is no different). Oh and, apparently, a horror film.

But I think what will be interesting is the precedent it will set, as the copyright expiration laws catch-up with more popular, culturally interesting work, like Mickey Mouse. Do you remember the fuss when “Time Regained by Marcel Proust” entered the public domain, nope, neither do I, but Mickey and the next wave of early movies will make the news.

How Disney handle this could set the standard for how brands and these media creators manage their intellectual property. There is an opportunity here for Disney to encourage the re-imagination of this classic, but how do they balance that with protecting their legacy? Especially as the Mickey Mouse brand is so essential and iconic to the whole company.

What can B2B marketers learn from this?

Well, maybe a good idea will be to keep an eye out on what other icons are coming out of copyright or have already. It could be your brand could align with a re-imagination of a brand, story or film. Apparently Lady Chatterley’s Lover is out of copyright this year, could this be our chance to finally spice up B2B.

I’m kidding, and I’m probably on firmer ground suggesting what we can learn is that our ideas and the things we create may not be as iconic as Steamboat Willie, but we should be generous about sharing them. Especially if we are confidently redefining our category, then we need others to build on that story.

Yes, I’ve had the conversation so many times that “xyz competitor stole our messaging”. Yeah they might have, but that’s because they could. Not that technology enabled them to copy and paste, but that that this vendors proposition/story and their competitors were so undifferentiated they were interchangeable. Ripping off Steamboat Willie, copyright or not, won’t make anyone Walt Disney.

I should probably mention AI too; would ChatGPT care about the fine print of copyright law? If four weeks ago we’d had asked for an image like Mickey in Steamboat Willie, would we have got a different response than today?

I would love to hear what you think, on this, any of the stuff I share below or maybe suggest things we should talk about on the podcast or include here. Just hit reply to this, or ping me at [email protected]

Thanks again, and happy new year!

Cheers,

Ian

Ian Truscott | Chief Bottle Washer Rockstar CMO

Now on Threads, be great to connect there, if you are on - https://www.threads.net/@iantruscott

Street Knowledge

The good stuff from Rockstar CMO, our community and other stuff I’ve liked over the holidays.

From the Band

What does ChatGPT Think?

From the interwebs

I’ve spun the dial on the interwebs…

Get your Monday Morning Marketing Mojo Working

This Monday, the first of the year, go on, you know you want to.. HEY MICKEY!!

The copy is totally human the promo image used on the web page was partially created using A.I. through NightCafe Studio