In 2019, Disney launched its highly anticipated streaming platform Disney+, the new home for all Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and Nat Geo content. Exclusively moving to the Disney+ platform, we communicated this “moving day” to the public with a social-first approach on Twitter. By creating a meticulously orchestrated thread of 10 tweets inviting each brand to join the move to Disney+, the clever posts became “The Mother of All Threads.” What started as a conversation between five iconic brands quickly became a conversation between millions of people, becoming a “Trending Topic” on Twitter. An idea that could have been launched on a classic TV spot structure was executed in a new way that led to an unprecedented engagement from our audience. Most importantly, the activation communicated that Disney+ was not just a content creator for kids but the go-to streaming platform for adults.

The Disney+ launch redefined what it meant to launch big and in a way that felt modern and organic by tapping into fandom. It represented a bold move, not only for the brand but also for the industry as a whole. And by sparking conversation between the most beloved entertainment brands globally, the posts quickly became a trending topic, showing the world that 10 organic tweets can be much more impactful than a 10 million dollar spot.

Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, Nat Geo, and the Simpsons encompass the most popular content consumed on existing streaming giants Netflix and Amazon. Studies even show that the moment audiences realize that their favorite series/films are no longer available on a given platform, they are more likely to follow the content to its new home rather than maintain their subscription in its absence.

The public nature of Twitter means that interactions are visible to all users. This is also what people are finding the most entertaining about the platform. We wanted to leverage this behavior to entertain people who felt new to a brand and very native to the platform.

We turned to Twitter, where the streaming audience is most active, and gave people a minute of entertainment created by one of the most epic Twitter threads of all time: the first-ever conversation between @Disney (6.6M followers), @Pixar (11.6M followers) @marvel (9.1M followers) @StarWars (4.4M followers) @NatGeo (23.6M followers) @TheSimpson (1M followers) @TheAvengers (5.3M followers) @GuardiansofTheGalaxy (1.4M followers), wherein they announced to the world that they were moving to a new home: @Disneyplus.

We launched with 10 tweets that displayed all our force. A thread between the iconic brands, where each one invited the following one to join the move to Disney+. What started as a conversation between five brands became a conversation between thousands of people. Leading to numerous sign-ups, way above the 10M expectation on the first day of launch.

With this social campaign, we also launched Disney+ social channels and were able to recruit half a million followers on Twitter within the first week, with no paid media.

With just 10 organic tweets, we generated 77,294 total mentions in one day. +75% net sentiment 752M impressions. The first major driver of conversation around Disney+, 51x more mentions than the daily average.

Disney+ was the top search term in 2019. The first time in Google’s "Year in Review" (YiR) history that a brand has been the most searched term of the year in the US.

10M subscribers the day of the launch, while the expectation was 8M within two months. By the end of 2019, Disney+ had 20M subscribers, which was their target for the end of 2020.