Disney Marketing of New Streaming Service in High Gear.

The Disney people like to plan things out in detail and in patience. It was two long years ago that they unveiled their plan for streaming exclusively the Disney product on a specific video platform — becoming, in effect, another Netflix. Managers at Disney were so bold as to proclaim that their launch would be so big and so hot that the media could not ignore it, and that their marketing strategy in and of itself would be a major news event. At the time of this bold announcement the major players like Amazon Prime and Netflix discounted it all as Disney ballyhoo that would never come to pass. The streaming technology to pull off such a success was extremely complex, and at the time Disney just didn’t have the technical know-how or the staffing to pull it off.

It remains to be seen if Disney has actually surmounted the technical hurdles, but there’s no doubt that Disney Plus, as the new streaming service is called, is pulling out all the stops in its marketing campaign, which is creating more buzz on social media than anything since the ice bucket challenge. Disney, of course, has some built-in advertising advantages that Hollywood and Silicon Valley lack.

Hundreds of Disney-owned buses that transport customers to and from Disney World in Florida have Disney Plus ads blazoned on the outside and the inside. Special video screens will give riders a special sneak preview of Disney Plus programming. Disney’s own cruise line, which has over twelve-thousand tourists on the high seas at any given moment, is premiering ‘High School Musical: The Series’ on each one of their luxury liners. All of the hundreds of Disney Stores will offer each visitor a OR code, so shoppers can simply scan in the code on their smartphones access the Disney Plus sign up page — and receive a one-time discount to boot.

And just remember, you scoffers at Netflix and Amazon Prime, that Tinkerbells has over nine million friends on Facebook alone . . .