Magically Black

The Opportunity

As a global media & entertainment brand, The Walt Disney Company consistently creates cultural phenomenon through imaginative storytelling & experiences — but struggles to foster a consistent and meaningful rapport with diverse communities, namely Black + African American audiences and consumers.

• 66% of consumers say brands have to reflect the diversity of the country within their organization, products, and in communications

• 79% are changing their purchase preferences based on social responsibility, inclusiveness, or environmental impact

• Black consumers are 58% more likely to expect the brands they buy to take a stance on issues they value

  • 37% are more likely to buy from a brand when they do

  • 61% believe brands who speak out aren’t genuine about the cause and are being opportunistic

Me and my partner in creating this pitch, Demarcus Johnson, knew that the Black Consumer indexes at 6 years younger than the national average, tend it be tech savvy digital natives, with heightened cultural awareness. They value Black Communities, Racial Justice and Equality, Black Women, and Reducing Poverty. At the time of our pitch in late 2020 / early 2021 many other corporations had made multi-million dollar financial promises to the Black community. Disney hadn’t made a strong statement at that moment. This opportunity lead to our concept — Magically Black.

The Mission

Magically Black is dedicated to:

• Establishing genuine connections with Black communities while being accessible to the masses

• Reflecting the rich, multi-faceted nature and experiences of Black life, creativity, contributions and ambitions

• Highlighting, amplifying, and celebrating Black stories, characters, employees, partnerships, social investments and charitable initiatives company-wide

• Consistently engaging and empowering Black audiences by creating collaborative opportunities through open-source programs

• Externally supporting Black communities, talent and cast in times of social unrest and crisis.

As a first and most important step in this digital social strategy, I pitched creating a unified Brand voice for the Disney company that spoke to the Black Consumer and Audience. This voice is imperative because Black consumers need to feel that a corporations connection is authentic. This voice allows us to amplify and speak up on issues that are important to the community and builds a genuine trust and rapport. It also would serve as the “central hub” of Blackness for the company, so that Black consumers know where to find information on Black and other relevant content across Disney’s varied platforms.

The Social Engagement strategy included 5 touchpoints at the time of conception.

Instagram: As a visual platform, this serves best for visual storytelling, aspirational and inspirational content, social justice amplification, playlists for streaming and release schedules, behind the scenes content, & some in-app product shopping.

ShopDisney: ShopDisney in the e-commerce website to shop for Disney products. This pitch included an IG integration for live commerce where Black designers can explain their process of designing the products. It builds trust with the community by highlighting Black talent, adds storytelling to commerce, provides equity by giving marginalized designers a platform and provides an avenue to infest in Black creators by partnering with Black Tik-Tok creators.

TikTok: Tiktok being the most relevant platform at the time of this strategy’s conception meant that we needed to leverage it in a way that provided the most impact. Content tends to go viral (or it’s virality starts on the platform and then leaks into Twitter and Instagram). This platform can be leveraged for content creator challenges, similar to the dance challenges that goes viral from influencers, short-form serialized content, talent profiles, and behind-the-scenes content.

Clubhouse: Now defunct, but at the time was a burgeoning platform with promise. The strategy for this verbal-based platform included opportunity for direct consumer engagement, live audio productions (Lion King, Mufasa performances), Talent panels, and feedback and reviews.

Twitter: Twitter is a fast-moving short form information sharing platform, that can be leveraged for relevancy – huge and priority content announcements, and direct consumer engagement via polls.

Youtube: With it’s longer content format and archives of historical intervals and behind the scenes content, Youtube serves as the perfect touchpoint for short-form serialized content, talent profiles, and merchandising do to it’s built in e-commerce offerings. Having a presence on this platform would also centralize all the older Disney and Disney affiliated content into one hub.

CASESTUDY

To prove 360 engagement, I produced a case study of what an upcoming release, Sneakerella, would look like if the concept of Magically Black existed.

1. A launch announcement, styled and design in a contemporary and resonate way would alert the community to the upcoming release.

2. A design contest / challenge that is focused on HBCU applicants would open shortly before the premiere. Incentivize and invest in the community by rewarding the winner.

3. Disney could even sponsor through the TikTok platform, a short-form series where finalist walk through their design process and create and pitch their ideas for a shoe design.

4. Using IG polls through IG stories and cross-channel promotion and engagement through Twitter polls, the community can vote for the design they like and which designer to win.

5. Disney invests in the winner by creating the design and selling it through the official ShopDisney channel.

To create a successful pitch to corporate, Demarcus and I knew we’d have to answer the big question of “Who sustains this work?” We met with managers and directors across various lines of business and determined that labeling Magically Black as a Franchise and structuring it as so made the most sense in regards to the level effort to get it off the ground and sustain the work. We knew we couldn’t propose too many roles because that would increase the budget and would likely constrain the success of adapting a pitch like this. The following structure is what we deemed necessary for the work:

We also included a go-to-market roadmap to simplify the request and adoption. We broke it down into fiscal quarters:

• Q3 - Q4 FY21 — Brand Seeding: soft launch of social media, brand visibility across vertical product channels and Disney+, touch-points at external cultural events such as Essence Fest

• Q1 - Q2 FY22 — Product Programming PR & Marketing: low-lift, mid-high visilbility programs, 3rd party partner programs

• Q3 - Q4 FY22 — Robust Programming and Product: Disney led programming, product expansions (branded halo(s) tied to IP), broader content development

• FY23 - FY25 — Brand Expansion: Identify opportunities to activate company wide, consider additional digital consumer experiences, add in retail footprint, consider branded product

We then identified all of the Black commercial content pending release and external cultural opportunities to activate against. These included Black History Month, Black Music Month, Essence Fest, Juneteenth, Afrotech, Curlfest and Kwanzaa.

Outcome

We were able to socialize our program through various departments and leadership.