Special Effects Make Streaming Magic for Disney+

The UK’s cost of living crisis has seen discretionary household spending on goods like streaming services under pressure. Families subscribing to multiple services are asking themselves “Do I really need three or four streaming subscriptions? And if I don’t, which ones get the chop?”

It’s at times like this that strong brand advertising can really help streamers shore up their subscriber base as well as reach out to new customers. Disney+’s latest UK campaign, “Think You Know Disney+? Think Again” has the job of demonstrating the breadth and depth of the Disney+ catalogue. That’s a trickier brief than the usual Disney streaming ads, which can draw on the company’s heavyweight brands – Star Wars, Marvel, Toy Story, Frozen et al – to thrill and delight audiences.

By contrast, this ad switches between the very latest and freshest hits and deep catalogue properties which people might not associate with Disney. If you know Disney+ has last year’s animated hit Encanto, you might not know it has new episodes of medical drama Grey’s Anatomy. If you’re familiar with Black Panther sequel Wakanda Forever, maybe you’ll be more surprised to learn Disney+ has a series based on male strippers The Chippendales.

Just listing these properties would make for a dull ad. And showing clips – well, let’s be honest, every streaming ad shows clips. Where Disney and Disney+ excel is in mashing up and remixing those clips and household-name characters to make something that excites viewers all over again. That’s why the brand so often hits 4- and 5-Stars in Test Your Ad.

With this ad, Disney+ have raised their game again, taking a different approach, and using visual FX to bring to life the feeling of immersion in a great show or movie. The worlds of the films erupt into the homes of their viewers, turning your living room into a nightclub and your bathroom into Wakanda.

The ad captures the escapism of a night in with Disney+ while shining a light on newer and lesser known parts of the catalogue. It’s a great balance and a worthy 4.0-Stars on Test Your Ad. The reason Disney+ is such a powerful player in the “streaming wars” isn’t just its extraordinary library of world-famous IP. It’s that the brand still understands the magic those properties contain, and puts that magic again and again at the heart of its offer to audiences.