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

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 influential behind-the-scenes leaders.

His ascension has happened as Disney is in the midst of a closely watched CEO succession process. Ayaz, 47 years old, isn’t a likely candidate to replace Iger, but is widely viewed as a potential “next next" CEO.

He keeps a low profile outside Disney’s offices and rarely speaks publicly, though he is active on X and Instagram, where he shares photos of himself with stars at premieres and on vacation in Iceland. A company spokeswoman declined to make Ayaz or other executives available for interviews. Iger called Ayaz “an exceptional leader" in an emailed statement and said he “ensures we are managing our brand effectively around the world."

Ayaz is a rare South Asian immigrant among Hollywood’s largely white senior executive ranks. He is known for an enthusiasm for Disney content that even fellow employees tease him about. The father of three’s office is decorated with more than 150 Funko figurines of Disney characters and he wears Marvel T-shirts at the gym. “He truly loves this stuff," said Ricky Strauss, who was previously Disney’s head of movie marketing and Ayaz’s boss.

Ayaz’s rise has been fueled by relationships with key creative talent. He earned the trust of Marvel chief Kevin Feige and director J.J. Abrams by integrating their feedback on posters and commercials and being available for late-night texts and weekend calls.

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo said when Ayaz visited the set of their Marvel mega-movie “Avengers: Doomsday" earlier this year, he said little while soaking in the production, then wowed them several months later with the first cut of a trailer his team had produced. “He’s just quietly observing and then later he presents material and it demonstrates he was really paying attention," said Anthony Russo.

The Ike whisperer

Ayaz was born in 1978 in Pakistan, where his father was a high-ranking officer in the country’s air force. He spent time in the Middle East when his father was ambassador to Syria and Lebanon before immigrating to the San Francisco Bay Area with his family as a teenager.

Growing up, Ayaz had posters of “Batman Returns," “The Simpsons" and “Thelma & Louise" on his bedroom wall, he told the advertising-executive network WFA in 2024.

After graduating from Bennington College in Vermont, he worked in consulting, then moved to Los Angeles to get a masters in economics at the University of Southern California. While there, he also got his first exposure to the entertainment industry and met Harma Hartouni. Ayaz persuaded his future husband to move in together 47 days after they met with a business-style presentation.

“As is his nature (always measured, always thoughtful) he explained why he thought it would be a good idea for us, highlighting the benefits and the potential drawbacks," Hartouni wrote in his memoir “Getting Back Up," about his recovery from a near-fatal auto accident. (Hartouni is now the CEO of a real-estate brokerage.)

Ayaz joined Disney’s home-entertainment division in 2005. DVDs were a huge business back then and Ayaz was charged with maximizing their revenue through everything from pricing to cover art.

Gordon Ho, who ran the home-entertainment unit’s product-management team, said Ayaz drilled into data at a time when that was unusual in Hollywood. He advocated targeting DVD campaigns at specific demographic groups, like Latinos and Asian-Americans.

His penchant for data helped Ayaz survive layoffs when the home-entertainment group merged with the theatrical-distribution team in 2010, said Rich Ross, who was chairman of Walt Disney Studios at the time. Ross gave him a role in theatrical marketing, where Ayaz soon was in charge of all of Disney’s live-action movies.

His job was to coordinate marketing efforts including television commercials, digital ads and publicity for films like 2011’s fourth “Pirates of the Caribbean" and 2012’s “Avengers."

Ayaz was one of the few employees at Disney able to deal with Marvel’s famously pugnacious and frugal chairman, Ike Perlmutter, on matters as small as how many buckets of popcorn the company would order for a premiere. He became known as an “Ike whisperer."

“Everyone thought Ike was crazy, but Asad was like, ‘I’m running marketing and I need him on my side,’" said Ross.

Perlmutter declined to comment.

For Disney’s first Star Wars movie, 2015’s “The Force Awakens," Ayaz worked with Abrams for months on the first trailer, down to frame-by-frame editing discussions. “I remember walking into multiple rooms filled with potential posters, all presented in the spirit of, ‘Let’s talk about these,’" recalled Abrams. “People in his position who are less confident hold their cards close to the vest and don’t engage with filmmakers like that."

Convinced to stay

In 2017, Ayaz almost defected to rival studio Twentieth Century Fox. When word of the negotiations got out, Iger and Disney movies chief Alan Bergman convinced Ayaz to stay, promising he had a big future at the company. The next year, he was promoted to president of theatrical marketing.

Ayaz didn’t stick to movies for long. In 2019, Mayer recruited him to help launch the streaming service Disney+, which didn’t have its own marketing chief. “More so than many Disney executives, he lets you know what he thinks and doesn’t try to be overly diplomatic," Mayer said of why he wanted to work with Ayaz.

In his current position, Ayaz has effectively rolled three Disney marketing jobs into one. In addition to corporate branding, he still oversees marketing for all Disney movies, including the recent hit “Zootopia 2." This year he also took charge of marketing for Disney television series.

Despite his broad remit, colleagues say he delves deep into details. He cajoled Harrison Ford to do more publicity for February’s “Captain America: Brave New World," managed “princess week" at Disney theme parks and online, and is integrating the Disney+ and Hulu marketing teams.

After a seemingly unstoppable box office run in the late 2010s, Disney had had a tougher time recently, with several disappointing Marvel movies and Pixar’s animated sci-fi bomb “Elio." Colleagues say Ayaz stays invested in films that are faring poorly in prerelease polling, hoping to make them at least less of a flop.

Unlike some marketing executives who question why a campaign didn’t work, though, he tends to quickly jump to the next project on his plate, some of the colleagues said.

That increasingly includes corporate initiatives to try to stoke the world’s love for Disney. He runs the company’s annual D23 convention for fans, is coordinating events at parks and on television for Disney to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, and is preparing for 2028. That year, America may be divided over who will be the next president, but Disney will be celebrating the 100th birthday of Mickey Mouse.

Write to Ben Fritz at ben.fritz@wsj.com