Looking forward to 2025 releases, the advocacy tactic may take different forms for Disney’s franchise releases versus its fresh additions. 20th Century Studios will release an espionage thriller called “The Amateur” on April 11. While it’s an original film, Ayaz said Disney can apply the “Alien” ideas to what fans are familiar with: stars Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan and Laurence Fishburne. The marketing will also be strategic with early screenings and highlighting the international locales featured in “The Amateur.”
While many of these activations lend themselves more naturally to adults and nerd-dom, Ayaz said building advocacy also applies in a unique way to Disney’s kids and family titles. “Moana” has consistently been a top-viewed movie in streaming over the years, including in 2024 when it topped Nielsen’s most-streamed movies chart for the second year in a row, with 13.03 billion minutes viewed.
“We didn’t focus on the new [for ‘Moana 2’],” said Ayaz. “We focused on returning to the land you love.”
Disney leveraged mania for the original in its marketing for “Moana 2,” combining music and promotion for both films. The sequel’s song “We’re Back” played a major role in instilling the idea that the characters and music kids love were returning.
Similarly, Ayaz said the rollout for “Inside Out 2” marketing intentionally started with the characters returning from the 2015 original before shifting to introduce the new emotions, primarily Anxiety, appearing in Riley’s mind.
The strategy for “Inside Out 2” also leaned heavily into creating shareable assets for young fans to make social content with, including animations and sounds from the film. Disney even encouraged fans sharing scenes seemingly filmed in the theater as a tool for viral word-of-mouth marketing. One example Ayaz pointed to has 16.7 million views on TikTok as of writing.