You’re reading an exclusive WrapPRO article for free. Want to level up your entertainment career? Subscribe to WrapPRO.
Trevor Kelley, senior vice president of marketing at Disney+, has been let go as part of the massive wave of Disney layoffs currently impacting the company.
Kelley had been a part of the company for more than 12 years, serving in different positions in digital marketing at both Walt Disney Studios and, later, at Disney+. He’d been the senior vice president of marketing at Disney+ for the past two years, following the direct-to-consumer streaming platform as it grew, during the pandemic, to one of the biggest streaming powerhouses on the marketing, certainly with one of the most robust libraries of legacy titles.
Kelley also oversaw what was once known as the Disney Digital Network, a suite of social channels (some devoted to titles and other to characters themselves – like you don’t follow Kermit the Frog on Twitter) and editorial voices (like the Buzzfeed-esque Oh My Disney) that would help to market Disney+ and the content found on the site.
The dismissal of Kelley marks another dramatic exit that earlier today saw Nate Silver leave ABC as the company tries to streamline its coverage for the next election. The layoffs are part of a company-wide downsizing that is expected to see as many as 4,000 employees (or “cast members” in Disney parlance) exit by the end of the week. By summer that number of “impacted” (another Disney term) employees is expected to rise to 7,000.
It’s unclear how Kelley’s dismissal will impact Disney+ marketing and publicity as a whole, although reinstated CEO Bob Iger has done much to dismantle the way that the company had been set up in the wake of his very short-lived retirement.
Iger made it a point to give power back to the “creatives” in a way that feels organic and beneficial to the Disney brand and so we expect there will be further updates to the org chart in the wake of the layoffs.
