• Media Relations
• Influencer Relations
As part of the celebrations for Disney’s 100 year anniversary, Disney launched Wonder of Friendship: The Experience an immersive journey, that allowed Disney fans to venture through 1,000 square metres of installations set across four rooms, including Alice in Wonderland, The Lion King, Mickey & Friends and Lilo & Stitch.
Our challenge was to get Gen Z excited about this experience and encourage them to purchase tickets for when it opened. We needed to keep conversations going over a four month period with no news in the run up to it opening, and at launch ensure that conversations were still had about the experience even if tickets weren’t available.
We also had to tread carefully around how we communicated clearly that this was an experience for adults rather than children, and that partner brands were mentioned in any stories we placed.
Our solution was to devise a high level media strategy that would place news and features around The Experience in key publications to target Gen Z but also maximise reach, across six media moments from ticket launch to the Experience opening. It was rolled out in the following ways.
At the ticket announcement in January, we announced the experience to national, Gen Z lifestyle, London and listings media. We launched the story with two artist impressions teasing to the media that more would be released soon. We also conducted research that showed Gen Z and millennials built memories around friendships with nostalgic experiences, and included commentary from friendship expert Dr. Miriam Kirmayer to add further weight to the story.
From there we created stories to continue to drive coverage, by releasing behind the scenes images of the experience as it was being created for a further push on tickets and a pitch that focused on Snapchat’s integration into the experience. Two weeks before opening we released a final batch of tickets, and announced FREENOW as a partner, enabling us to drive even more coverage before it opened.
At launch, the experience was a sell out but we still needed to drive coverage even though no more tickets were available. To do that we invited media to visit the experience the day before it opened, and worked with Getty to create media ready images, and a social focused broll of the experience. Everyone who attended was sent the assets, which meant we saw coverage go live across media’s social channels the day before opening, with review pieces landing over the weekend of launch.
We also hosted a VIP party for influencers and celebrities. Celebrities would help us to drive coverage in the entertainment and influencers were key for Gen Z. We worked closely with Disney to choose and invite influencers across the UK and EMEA that were not just Disney fans, but people who created fun and engaging content across multiple platforms (Instagram and TikTok).
We also worked with Disney partner brands including Primark, Pandora, H&M, SkinnyDip and FREENOW to invite influencers that were fans of those brands, which meant the resulting content showcased not just the experience but importantly Disney products from those brands as well.
The campaign received 640 pieces of influencer coverage, 559 of which were Instagram stories of the experience. It also received over 66 pieces of traditional coverage spanning national, consumer lifestyle, cultural, trade and industry media - including dedicated TikToks on TimeOut at launch, a title and channel that was key for Disney.
