This social film was posted to Disney Parks U.S. domestic social channels and as such had to comply with community standards for decency and online safety as well as intellectual property claims. In addition, as this footage was intended for a family audience we ensured that this content matched the U.S. age ratings and it had to be appropriate for children.

The content piece was uploaded to Disney’s various social pages, with the intention that fans of Disney would watch the video and share it with their friends and family. Followers on Disney’s Social channels have a high level of engagement, which made it a great channel to amplify the activity at the Mall. Within the first 24 hours of the video being posted across 8 of Disney’s various social pages, it had been viewed over 25 million times, 99% of all views were organic.

Facebook was a key channel for Disney, with people immediately viewing and sharing the video on their social networks, aiding to the organic growth and reach of the promotion.

Within the first 48 hours the video had received 58 million views on Facebook and YouTube, 1.2 million shares, and thousands of comments like this one: “This actually made me tear up! I just really want to go to Disneyland even more!”

To date, the Disney Side Shadows video has been viewed over 106 million times and shared over 2.2M times around the world.

Disney Side Shadows has out-performed against every benchmark Disney Parks had for social videos, especially in support of a national campaign. To illustrate, traditionally social videos posted on Walt Disney World’s Facebook page receive on average, 446k views. In comparison the Disney Side Shadow video has received 20.9 M views on Walt Disney World’s Facebook page, an increase of over 4,500%.