A version of this article previously appeared on DisneyConnect.com
Every day, in every corner of Walt Disney World Resort, magic is happening.
The teams at Walt Disney World Marketing, Disney’s Internal creative agency, Yellow Shoes, and agency partner, Dentsu, were tasked with bottling those authentic guest moments into an ad campaign conveying that Walt Disney World is The Most Magical Place On Earth.
The end result is the simple yet powerful campaign called This Is Magic.
Last month, This Is Magic was awarded the prestigious Silver Lion in the Brand Storytelling category at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.
While the final product may be elegantly simple, the process to get there took significant time and thought. Here’s the story of how the teams were able to pull it together.
A Resonance Only Disney Has
“Our inspiration for This is Magic came from reading guests letters, hearing from our cast and seeing it playing out in our parks,” Sivonne Davis, VP of Marketing Strategy at Walt Disney World, said.
Fans fondly reminisce about things like meeting their favorite character at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, being left speechless while they watch the Happily Ever After fireworks, or even just a quiet moment for a parent relaxing in the Art of Animation Pool.
“There are only a handful of brands that have a special place in people’s lives and hearts. Disney is one of them,” Helen Pak, SVP of Creative – Marketing, Design and Content, explained. “The relationship that Disney has with consumers and guests is special and one filled with a lot of joy, meaning and memory.”
Rather than overcomplicate communicating that idea, the team chose instead to convey that relationship in as straightforward a way as possible. They gravitated towards the phrase “This is Magic”, and centered the campaign around images accompanied by those simple words.
The final product would have to show “real guests, having fun on their vacations at Walt Disney World Resort,” Davis said.
259 real people, 30 hours of footage, 57 moments of real magic
The team set out to film authentic moments of magic occurring throughout the resort.
“Our challenge was to ensure that these moments didn’t just look and feel real as an ad – they had to be real,” Pak said.
To accomplish that, the production was stripped down: crew was kept as small as possible, talent on screen wore their own clothes and didn’t have any make-up on.
“There was no direction given to individuals and families. We didn’t have a set script,” Pak said. “The cameras were documenting real magic being experienced as it happened.”
The crews left their cameras running as much as possible to catch any authentic moment as it happened, which gave them an overwhelming amount of footage to pick through.
“We had 259 real people selected, captured 30+ hours of content and featured 57 moments of real magic,” Pak noted.
Once the final moments were selected, the teams honored them by not getting in the way. That meant no voice overs, musical tracks, or effects. In the finished product, moments play out in full and unedited on screen, with a simple note of the time and location appearing on screen.
Sharing the Magic
The campaign launched on Dick Clark’s New Years Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest on December 31. It was then shared both on linear television and digitally.
To get the message out there even further, the team was “fortunate to be able to work with outstanding partners and with them dream big, leaning into the broad reach of audiences and love of the brand that The Walt Disney Company has,” Davis explained.
The campaign broke new ground with the first-ever social stories takeover. Moments from the campaign were shared at the exact same time they had happened at Walt Disney World.
The team got an assist from some of the biggest social channels that Disney has to offer, like @disney, @starwars, @pixar, and @disneyparks. The result was massive exposure, with over 107 million people experiencing those magic moments over social media.
Connecting with Audiences and Critics Alike
“I cry every time I see several of the family stories, thinking to my own cherished moments with my mom here,” Davis said.
As evidenced by its Silver Lion win, she wasn’t the only one the campaign resonated with.
“The stories you see on screen are from our guests, yet they are also a representation of the joy we feel as cast members of Walt Disney World Resort,” Davis explained.
Davis went on to explain that due to the connection that cast members have to the resort, it’s not just guests being celebrated, “but our own cast are being seen too.”