• by Wayne Friedman , April 21, 2010

Making a rare high-level executive move, Walt Disney Studios has announced MT Carney, a movie business outsider and media agency planning and communications executive, will be the president of marketing for all of Disney's theatrical movie business.

MT Carney is a communications planning executive and partner of Naked Communications' U.S. operations. Naked is an integrated communications company with a special emphasis on digital marketing.

Carney will run marketing for all of Walt Disney Pictures, including Walt Disney Animation, Pixar Animation and Touchstone Pictures.

Typically, many movie marketing chiefs come through a studio's internal operations -- from media, promotion, public relations or creative advertising ranks.

But new Walt Disney Studios chairman Richard Ross has been looking for an executive outside the studio system, one with heavy digital media experience, all to shake up Disney's entertainment marketing efforts.

Ross stated: "MT represents a unique type of marketing executive -- she has built global teams, can market a product across multiple platforms and has firsthand knowledge of new media and its effectiveness in reaching consumers."

Carney had worked with clients such as Coca-Cola, Kraft, Johnson & Johnson, Google, Microsoft and Nokia that want to grab attention through digital platforms and avoid traditional media.

She helped set up Naked Communications' U.S. operation in January 2006. Previously, Carney was worldwide planning director at Oglivy & Mather.