The marketing master trying to make us fall in love with Disney again

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Disney’s public image has taken a beating this year. It got dragged into the woke wars with its “Snow White" remake and angered both conservatives and liberals when the company briefly benched Jimmy Kimmel.

Asad Ayaz wants us to forget about all that for the holidays. Disney’s first-ever chief brand officer is spearheading a “Best Christmas Ever" campaign featuring an online video that’s been viewed more than 34 million times and an animated Times Square billboard highlighting fan-drawn characters. It’s one of numerous efforts by Ayaz, the most powerful marketing chief in modern Disney history, to depoliticize the company and associate its theme parks, movies and overall brand with the kind of feel-good Americana a divided nation can get behind.

For most of his nearly two decades running Disney, Bob Iger didn’t think he needed someone in Ayaz’s position. As chief executive, Iger believed it was his job to manage the image of the world’s best-known entertainment brand, according to people who worked with him. “Asad is so good that he overcame a really substantial reluctance on the part of Bob" to have a chief brand officer, said media executive Kevin Mayer, who worked at Disney for more than two decades, most recently as head of its streaming services.

The rare about-face by the CEO in 2023 was an admission that he needed help restoring the luster of a company that had grown increasingly complex and become embroiled in a bitter political battle with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to a person familiar with Iger’s thinking. It was also a remarkable vote of confidence in Ayaz, who has in 16 years risen from the bowels of Disney’s DVD business to become one of the company’s most