Disney layoffs impacting 1,000 employees got underway Tuesday, affecting several entire divisions of publicity, Marvel and some noted lieutenants of Asad Ayaz, the company’s chief marketing and brand officer.
Among those let go are 20 people from the company’s publicity departments, as well as the entire home entertainment team, led by executive director of global publicity and marketing communications Chris Bess. Also gone is the EPK team, including director of creative content Natalie Clunis.
On the digital marketing side, positions at every level were eliminated including SVP of Global Digital Marketing Dustin Sandoval and Director of Digital Marketing Mike Reeder.
Marvel also felt the impact of the layoffs, although Disney disputed a report that the number of impacted reached 8%, telling TheWrap it’s “much smaller.”
The layoffs did impact Marvel employees in both Burbank and New York, across most areas of the division – film and television production, along with comics, franchise, finance and legal.
TheWrap was told this was the result of an overall reduction in Marvel’s film and television production slate, artificially inflated in years past by the desire for fresh product for Disney+, plus efficiencies from the integration of Marvel Entertainment into Marvel Studios and the aforementioned emphasis on operational efficiency and cost management.
Particularly noteworthy is the dismissal of digital marketing SVP Sandoval, one of Ayaz’s key lieutenants, who oversaw the digital marketing campaigns for some of the company’s biggest hits, including “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Avengers: Endgame,” and known for his creative approach to the marketing of projects like “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” for which they sent actual apes on horses to major American cities. Sandoval, a 16-year veteran of the company, was one of the highest-ranking Latino executives in Hollywood.
Some parts of the company were spared – the film publicity department in New York, Pixar – but creative advertising was impacted, with Steve Nuchols, who oversaw the print campaigns for nearly every movie released from the company in the past 25 years, let go, as was Theresa Helmer, who worked on the company’s YouTube and brand campaigns as VP of Brand Digital Marketing.
In a letter sent to Disney staff Tuesday morning and obtained by TheWrap, D’Amaro said, “In January, we announced our unified enterprise marketing and brand organization, designed to serve consumers in an even more connected way. Over the past several months, we have looked at ways in which we can streamline our operations in various parts of the company to ensure we deliver the world-class creativity and innovation our fans value and expect from Disney. Given the fast-moving pace of our industries, this requires us to constantly assess how to foster a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce to meet tomorrow’s needs. As a result, we will be eliminating roles in some parts of the company and have begun notifying impacted employees.”
It’s unclear what that “technologically-enabled workforce” means, especially after Disney pulled out of a costly and highly publicized OpenAI arrangement earlier this year after Sora was disbanded. Disney has recently touted the fact that Walt Disney Imagineering, the division of the company responsible for the company’s portfolio of theme parks, attractions and cruise ships, was using an AI tool named JARVIS (named after Tony Stark’s AI companion) to help make it easy for current Imagineers to source older materials in the division’s library.
D’Amaro continued: “Compassion and respect remain at the heart of our company. As we move forward through this transition, our priority is to support those impacted and help each person navigate what comes next with resources, guidance, and direct support.”
We asked Disney for specifics on what kinds of help they will be offering impacted employees but have yet to hear back, beyond talk of a “career transition program” mentioned to one of the impacted employees.
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