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It's not often I get to talk about "dimensionalising the emotional connection" with Buzz Lightyear, or the merchandising potential for a Winnie the Pooh healthier brand of honey pots.

And it's rare to have the privilege of meeting someone close to the extraordinary phenomenon that is Hannah Montana.

But such a man is Andy Mooney, native of Whitburn in West Lothian. It's hard to imagine any Scot with more marketing clout, having grown Disney Merchandising gross retail sales from $12bn in 2000 when he became its president to $30bn last year. That was after a stellar job heading up Nike apparel.

While his end of the Los Angeles-based business goes from strength to strength, helped by the acquisition of 5,000 superhero characters with Marvel comics, the rest of the vast Disney empire hasn't been finding recession a happy experience. Several films have badly disappointed, and the head of its studio has just been replaced.

New stories

The new approach to the movie business is for what they call "tent-pole" projects - fewer huge projects around which the rest of the business clusters. Those coming up include another Toy Story, another Cars, another Pirates of the Caribbean and another take on Alice in Wonderland.

You might feel the sequel and re-working of past commercial success displays a lack of creative thinking. But according to Mooney, Disney's business is now 60% non-American. That helps explain why they've got creative teams working on new story lines in Japan, India and China. "We want to see ourselves as global story tellers, moving those characters around the world," says Mooney.

As for the merchandising end of things, Mooney is into a lot more than cuddly toys and pyjama sales. He talks of having "tribes" of his staff working across toys, fashion accessories, home products, stationery, consumer electronics,health, beauty and food.

Mickey prints

Disney food? "You'd be surprised," says Mooney. "We're even managing to brand fresh vegetables [around] Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse. We made a conscious decision to exit some of the unhealthier food categories about five years ago, and in turn put an emphasis on getting the kids to eat a little healthier, and that would require more fruit and vegetables. So we've been working with retailers and their private label brands, to introduce the characters into those categories and create ways to help mom get kids to eat these products - through sticker campaigns or collectibles."

Dimensionalising that emotional connection - that is, making a connection with Buzz Lightyear and then finding ways to continue that in different dimensions after you've left the cinema - isn't just driving towards profit from next Christmas' stocking.

Not that they don't want lots of that. But the Disney business model can afford to think long-term. That connection goes on until parenthood and grandparenthood. One part of the Mooney empire is in high value reprints of Mickey Mouse original sketches.

Hear more from Andy Mooney on today's edition of The Business on Radio Scotland, available on iplayer and podcast.