Last week The Wall Street Journal reported that Disney is exploring a membership program that could offer discounts or special perks to encourage customers to spend more on its streaming services, theme parks, resorts and merchandise. The objective of the program is something akin to Amazon Prime and seeks to better link Disney products and services, something I’ve been describing in recent mailings as “Customer Data Platform (CDP) business logic”.

Last night I ran into a friend I had not seen in 15 years. He now runs a hedge fund.

We started discussing the stock market, tech and media stocks, and then the conversation moved to the topic of board dynamics. He had raised the topic independently while discussing his own experiences on boards, and I had just written about activist investor Dan Loeb of Third Point Capital and the Disney board. 

As the Wall Street Journal reported last week, Loeb “is concerned that Disney directors don’t have enough experience in digital advertising, the monetization of consumer data and other areas that could help Disney boost profits as the company becomes more technology-focused.”

My friend hypothesized that perhaps Loeb was not acting independently but rather at the request of senior Disney management.