A Telling Webtoon Hire

I didn't catch it until the weekend, but it was announced last week that Webtoon Entertainment has brought on Priya Girishanker as head of marketing for their English-language division. She's probably not a familiar name as she hasn't worked in comics before. She was previously a Senior Vice President in Disney's marketing arm, specifically leading their Disney Rewards program, and she's spent the last three years as the Executive Vice President for Consumer and Brand Marketing at the Los Angeles Times. She clearly has some solid and powerful experiences that she's bringing to the table, but largely from entertainment fields kind of adjacent to anything to do with comics.

In a statement she made on her LinkedIn account, she noted...

I am so happy to be joining WEBTOON in bringing stories from amazing creators across the globe to life. I want to thank JunKoo Kim [Webtoon's CEO], Yongsoo Kim [Webtoon's CSO], and Glenn Choi [Webtoon's VP of HR] for sharing their vision and deep enthusiasm for the brand, what we can build together and for making me part of the WEBTOON family.

I suspect most people will zoom in on her time with Disney. After all, it is a company that's built around telling stories and one of the largest corporations in the world. It's a nice piece to have stand out on your resume, particularly if you worked there for over a decade and a half. But here's the thing that strikes me... she didn't work for the part of Disney that everybody loves. She worked for the cynical part of Disney that's concerned less about your enjoyment of their media and more concerned about just keeping you as a perpetually paying customer. Here are some snippets taken from how Girishanker's described her roles at Disney...

Led entire marketing function for Disney Rewards, including unifying member acquisition, engagement, retention, consumer insights and product for the first time.

Led all aspects of Disney Rewards business, creating a highly efficient and supportive team environment that allowed for both team and business growth. Partnered with other Disney business units to leverage the member based to drive efficient and guaranteed revenue streams. Partnered with other Disney businesses to develop innovative b2b2c and b2c initiatives intended to build long-term consumer relationships.

Built direct-to-consumer relationships across the Disney brand, thereby creating highly loyal and engaged member based. Oversee all aspects of operations, including product, technology, marketing, finance, and business development.

Now, to be fair, Girishanker's using resume-speak here. This is her trying to tell potential employers that she adds financial value to the company. But there's also nothing resembling "connecting with beloved characters" or "ensuring customers have magical experiences" or any of the typical euphemisms that media companies utilize when they try talking about how their intangible assets (characters and stories) lead to more tangible ones (revenue and income). For example, the most recent Disney press release I can find, coincidentally from the same day as Webtoon's announcement, includes: "Disney Experiences brings the magic of The Walt Disney Company’s powerful brands and franchises — including Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, ESPN, 20th Century Studios and National Geographic — into the daily lives of families and fans around the world to create magical memories that last a lifetime."

I don't point all this out to showcase any kind of moral judgement or anything. Companies that don't put at least some effort towards bean counting have a tendency to go out of business fairly quickly. I'm calling attention to this to highlight Webtoon's focus. Despite being very much a company that is promoting webcomics and storytelling, their interest is more in ensuring that you become and stay a paying customer. While some of that necessarily requires a measure of customer satisfaction, that's not their focus. The question they're asking is: how do we keep people coming back again and again?

And if your answer to that is "just keep telling webcomic stories that I like" then you're possibly forgetting how deep into the 21st century we are. Other platforms that have focused on keeping people coming back again and agin include Google, Facebook, X, YouTube, LinkedIn... It's not about whether or not you enjoy your experience, it's about customer retention. And those are not the same thing.

Does this mean I think Webtoon is going to be enshitified the same way those other platforms have been? Well, no, not the same way certainly. But if your company's focus is not on delighting your customers but on simply customer retention... well, that's going to lead to different types of 'innovation,' isn't it? I'm not going to lay all the blame here at Girishanker's feet, by any means, but I think rather that her hiring is a symptom of what we can expect to see from Webtoon as a company overall in the next few years.

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