Disney Magic at SXSW – How Global Brands Build Local Brand Love

Lucy Amos was there when socials were just taking off. She is the director of social media at Disney UK and EMEA and was the first one to set up Facebook and YouTube accounts at Disney EMEA 14 years ago.

On a panel at South by Southwest (SXSW) London, she talked with social agency Jungle Creations’ CEO, Melissa Chapman, and strategic advisor, Sedge Besick, about ways to engage local audiences and create culturally relevant content.

Constant change

One of the biggest components of local success is constantly evolving with the culture and technology, said Lucy. “If there is something that hasn't changed it is the constant change and evolution.” Educating people on the team and in the business, and making sure that “everybody is keeping up” is vital.

Melissa shared how going with the trends and listening to what was needed was a big part of Jungle Creations’ reach today. “I've been at Jungle for about 13 years. When we started out, we were a Facebook page, and we wanted to build communities around passion points.” She explained how the agency “evolved” in social channels. “We really looked at what the opportunity was and how to follow it.”

Melissa explained that through quick shifts and changes in social media algorithms and audience behaviour, the agency has to keep being agile. Change is coming even quicker than it was before, she said. While short-form content is still in demand, audiences are now also looking for long-form.

She add: “The most interesting thing over the last four years is how we take those learnings and how we support our client partners in their own navigation of socials… It's just about not resting on your laurels and keeping on your toes, really.”

Global Versus Local

When expanding global impact locally, the most important thing is following brand values throughout, said Lucy. “Our job is to make sure that we're taking those values and making them relevant to each market, and making sure the tone of voice also reflects that market.”

She gave an example of the recent ‘Inside Out 2’ Disney film, a sequel to the 2015 original. ‘Inside Out 2’ has had significant success, surpassing $1.699 billion worldwide at the box office. The character Anxiety was a particular phenomenon on social media, Lucy noted. She then talked the audience through the use of that character on social media pages. “So when ‘Inside Out 2’ came out, we had the Euros and we did a lot of football posts with the characters, like Anxiety or Anger. We used those characters to represent kind of how the countries might be feeling.”

Audience Engagement

Melissa then went on to explain how Jungle Creations can be an extension of that strategy. “The biggest focus for us is community management. That's where the global and local become even more prominent because it's the British, it's the UK tone of voice, it's those related moments.”

Now, social media is becoming more and more “anti-social” and creating a sense of community and love is even more significant, she highlighted.

Lucy said that it helps to think how followers on social media might be in real life. “But then our job is to work out, how do we make those people feel seen?” Through the family account, for example, Disney uses relatable family content for parents to feel heard and understood. “That community is something we really make an effort to build” because parents as consumers are “very time-poor”. That is why the content needs to be “engaging” and “really meaningful.”

Having a 24-hour system in their agency to respond to comments at any time really helps build that community, Lucy said. Since they are an external agency, it takes time to build that kind of trust between company and agency until they know their partner can answer accordingly to their brand.

After getting that trust and being responsible for socials, management is key, she suggested. The agency must understand the needs of the audience and then create content from there, almost as if the audience is a “curator”.

Local Ambassadors and Influencers

Influencers are an “absolute crucial part of what we do at Disney”, Lucy said. “We don't just use our influencers for their platforms, but we also use them on our own feed.” Love for Disney as a brand, for the characters and the products is an important criteria in choosing influencers. Disney especially values family creators, since they can connect with family audiences on a more personal level. “They're representing Disney, they give us a voice.”

Lucy added: “We don't want to be afraid of failure.” That is why as long as we “keep learning from mistakes… we have something to show for it and the learning continues.”