The Force is strong with Disney’s marketing of Star Wars buy
I confess I’m a Disney fan. Disneyland opened the summer before I entered 8th grade, but I never got to go until we went 30-some years later with our kids.
When Disney announced on Halloween that it had acquired Lucasfilm, owners of the Star Wars franchise, it was big news. It also was an opportunity for someone at Disney to invest a little bit of time to make a brilliant marketing move.
Remember the long-running series of Disney “What’s Next?” commercials featuring Super Bowl or NBA or Olympics champs being asked what they plan to do after winning their championships? “I’m going to Disneyland,” was the reply.
Well, on the day of the Lucasfilm announcement, some creative Disney marketer got Darth Vader and some Imperial Storm Troopers to cut a video asking Darth Vader “What are you going to do next?” The YouTube video shows Darth and his entourage enjoying the fun of Disneyland.
What I love about it is that someone, probably with no budget, could execute the idea so quickly. For those of us who visit Disneyland with some frequency (I take each of my grandkids for four days in the parks between their 9th and 10th birthdays), we know that Darth and the Imperial Storm Troopers have Jedi training sessions six times a day, so the costumed characters are easily available.
So is the whole park. Get a video crew Disney marketing team, shoot some video, edit and post.
In one day, the quickly posted YouTube video has had almost 500,000 plays. Congratulations to the marketer that had that idea. Brilliant.