Materials From Campaign

The materials I found included a press release and the commercials that aired on television. There was also a website that gave an overview of what the campaign looked like. Currently, a video has been posted on a website stating that Disney “has reached their goal of one million volunteers” (http://www.disneyparks.com/) so the campaign is being shut down and people can no longer participate in the Disney “give a day, get a Disney day” program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnFpYyZ578c

The commercials were a smart choice because they feature prime time celebrities from shows such as “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” Each commercial also featured a Muppet character. I thought it was a good idea to use well known celebrities from shows to promote a good cause because whether we admit it or not celebrities influence us. The commercials aired frequently on various channels which I thought was so a variety of people would see them. Audiences like to see a recognizable celebrity telling them about a certain campaign or product.

http://www.wdwnews.com/viewpressrelease.aspx?pressreleaseid=99872&siteid=1

The press release showing that Disney had exceeded their goal of one million people was a good move because it shows how highly successful it was. Disney included a statement from their CEO saying, “The goal of the ‘Give a Day, Get a Disney Day’ program was to lay the groundwork for a new spirit of volunteerism” (http://www.wdwnews.com/). Disney proved to their audience that they care about the community and those who work to make it a better place. The campaign could not have come at a better time for Disney. Many people are volunteering because they are either trying to boost their resume or they cannot find a job. Since the economic downturn there have been a large number of volunteers. This made Disney look even better because they are rewarding volunteers with a cheap vacation. Disney stated that even though the campaign is over people can still redeem their tickets until December 15, 2010. This is a good idea because with the popularity of the campaign it was shut down quickly.

http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/disneyparks/en_US/index?name=HomePage

The website explaining about the campaign was a good idea because it gives people an easy reference for questions they have. The website currently displays a video stating that the campaign is over because Disney has reached their goal in getting one million people to volunteer. The website just posted a statement saying people can use their Disney passes until December 15, 2010. The website explains details of the campaign and states that this is the first time Disney has tried a volunteer campaign.

P.R. Partnership Framework

For the P.R. parntership I examined the Disney “give a day, get a Disney day" campaign. The program's purpose states if people volunteer and get a proof of volunteerism note from their site supervisor they can redeem it for a free ticket to any Disney park. This seemed like a great campaign because it made Disney seem very charitable and humble for rewarding people for volunteering. I thought it was considerate of Disney, because people do not have very much money for vacations since the economic downturn. Disney World’s official website featured an instruction page on how to redeem your free ticket to a Disney park. I wanted to do research on this campaign because the concept of rewarding someone for volunteerism seemed interesting.

The problem research I conducted showed that Disney wanted to reward and encourage people to volunteer. However, finding out information about the campaign was harder than I thought. Shortly after finding the webpage that dealt specifically with the campaign it was taken off. When I went back to enter the webpage it asked for a password and claimed that the webpage was no longer available. I then decided to call Disney World for more information. The Disney public relations department did not have a lot of information about how the campaign was conducted. The director of the public relations department at Disney claimed they had handed the campaign off to a company called, "Hands on Network." I was confused because the ads for the “give a day, get a Disney day” campaign were still airing on television.

When I called the Hands on Network public relations company the phone rang until it went to voicemail. The voicemail said that the campaign had been shut down because they had exceeded their goal because over one million people had participated in the program. They claimed they did not expect this many people to participate in the program so it was shut down. After that they gave a general description of the program talking about how if you volunteer you get a free ticket to Disney. We would like to have conducted more research but this is where our P.R. partnership ended. I did leave a voicemail asking for more information on how they conducted the campaign but unfortunately have still not heard back.

I thought the campaign was poorly planned because my partner said that the ads were still airing on television for this campaign but yet we were being told it had shut down.