How Disney Uses Synergy in it’s Marketing

Disney has many different business holdings across many different media properties. Disney will use this massive media reach in order to promote all of its properties. They also will use more traditional routes of television and online advertising as well as using their own social media platforms. All of the experiences that Disney offers allow for them to advertise to their target market in a way that doesn’t feel like you are being advertised to but rather in a way that is entertaining. With heavy use of nostalgia and the many properties Disney owns, allows them to keep hold of their audience by keeping their characters relevant and using them to promote every new property that comes out.

Disney will use their social media as a way to send out simple advertisements about their theme parks but also use it as a way to connect with guests and as a way to tell them information in a way that feels more personal. This information can be simple such as park hours of the parks every day and if certain parking lots are full or not. They also use this in a grander way to inform of new expansions coming to their parks. Disney will often post these announcements on their own Disney Parks Blog and then distribute it across their own social media platforms. They provide these announcements in easy to digest ways. Also with Disney being Disney, they are often worded in broad and general terms early on and then slowly more and more specific announcements will come out. Disney also uses their social media in a very clever way to connect with their audience, and that is through the use of “Cast Compliments”. When somebody visits a Disney Park and has a great experience with somebody who works there they can tweet at either the Disney World or the Disneyland twitter handles using #CastCompliment and they will receive a tweet back from the account. Most of the time a few days later, most likely after their vacation is over they will receive another tweet. Disney prints out the tweet and gets the complimented cast member to take a photo with the tweet and tweets the photo back. Though this is most likely not directly a marketing ploy, but rather comes from a genuine place, of wanting to recognize the people that work for them it also has another side effect. Receiving the tweet back will remind the guest of that great experience and will most likely male them want to return to the park again. I tweeted out a cast compliment when I was there and two months later I got the tweet back of that cast member and it definitely made me have flashbacks to the great memory. Disney will also respond to any questions that get asked to them on twitter and often at a fairly rapid pace, allowing for another element of personal connection.

Disney has also loves synergy and one man who kicked the idea of synergy into high gear was Michael Eisner. He would create movies in order to promote attractions in the parks and vice versa. We saw this work to great success with such properties as The Pirates of the Caribbean and not so much with The Haunted Mansion, and with The Country Bears. These are easy ways to subtly remind the viewer of the other platforms that the story exists on, and make them want to experience the other variations once again, or for the first time. This only works though when the movies are good (the only reason I think I liked The Haunted Mansion movie was due to all the subtle Easter eggs I could geek out on). We saw Disney continually do this throughout the Eisner era, especially on television. One special was called The Muppets at Walt Disney World, the Muppets also would have an attraction open at Walt Disney World a year later allowing for more synergy. This is one example of how Disney uses television in order to promote its theme parks.

Disney will broadcast television specials in order to promote new and upcoming attractions to their theme parks. We see the full blown out specials for one attraction happening less and less today, now Disney can slowly build the hype through the internet and the slow release on information they do now. We still do see the annual Christmas parade where they will advertise different Disney attractions around the world in between the different acts and performances. These are ways for Disney to make the viewer not feel like they are being advertised to because it is being integrated into the show. Nowadays when they do it there is more of a separation between the “advertising” and the actual show. In the beginning of Disneyland this distinction was blurred a bit more. In 1956 Walt Disney released “Disneyland USA” as a part of his documentary series “People and Places” which showcases how people live around the world. The documentary was merely a tour of Disneyland, showing different parts of the park and what guests could except if they went there. The documentary was done with the seriousness as if they were covering one of the other locations within the documentary series. This allows for a viewer to see the park in a way that doesn’t feel like an ad.

One thing that Disney has that many other studios do not is their many media holdings under one set identity. People now associate all of the studios (maybe besides Fox) under one umbrella. Most people do associate Marvel and Star Wars with Disney now. Whether this be due to the fact that the shows based off these properties are played on Disney networks or due to their presence within the theme parks. This lack of distinction will be made even clearer when Disney launches their streaming service, Disney +. Having all of these properties under one umbrella allows them to promote all of the properties across one another. Disney can use ABC in order to promote a new movie or theme park attraction, there are ads on the busses at the theme parks for the various other Disney properties, the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride in Disney’s California adventure may make somebody go watch the movie. It provides a seamless transition in between the properties, which Disney embraces. This is something that other film studios cannot do. Most other studios and media companies are very disjointed and don’t associate one with the other very well. An example of this is Viacom, they own MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. These three assets have nothing to do with one another and Viacom keeps it that way. The properties don’t allow for or have the synergy that the Disney properties have. Many people don’t even know Viacom exists as a parent company. Disney, who also owns ESPN even brings them into the fold of their great love of synergy. At Disney World you can go to the ESPN Wide World of Sports where you can watch various sporting events, they also have the ESPN Club which is a sports bar at the boardwalk. There are even articles on the ESPN website about various Disney events. Other studios will focus on the properties of that specific studio, the way Disney cross promotes their products allow new audiences to become aware of the other properties that they own.

Disney also uses the grip it has on your childhood to its advantage. Disney will rely heavily on nostalgia in its advertising, something most other studios don’t have the luxury to do. Disney characters are very noticeably Disney, there are very few other studios that have such recognizable icons that the can use to their advantage. We saw this recently with the teaser trailer for Toy Story 4 being released. It was simply all the iconic characters going past the screen with a sentimental song and finally one new character from the movie. This is a simple yet effective trailer. It served its purpose as a teaser and got (at least me) fans excited for what is to come by playing to their nostalgia for the film franchise. We see Disney doing this on a MASSIVE scale for Mickeys 90th birthday this year. They are using peoples love for Mickey Mouse and partnering with tons of other brands who are selling Mickey Mouse merchandise all under the “Mickey True Original” brand. Some of the things I have seen (and ended up buying) are shoes and appeal from Vans, Levis jackets and even candy from Sugarfina. They also broadcasted a 90th special on ABC and are having Mickey travel all over the word (and obviously making stops at some of the worldwide theme parks along the way) which is being shown on Good Morning America on ABC. All of these ads feed into having people associate these various brands and the parks with the nostalgia that they have for Disney.