The Walt Disney Company Brand Manifesto
What We Did
Tell the 100-year story of The Walt Disney Company, which is basically the story of everything—from Mickey to Marvel to infinity and beyond.
How We Did It
This was by far the most ambitious project we have ever tackled. Essentially the creative editorial equivalent of climbing Everest, or free-soloing El Capitan. Our initial squeals of delight and excitement were quickly silenced by the arrival of five 20-terabyte hard drives, and a not-so-mild panic attack.
Hakuna matata, right?
There’s only one place to start on this epic endeavor: The Beginning.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released on December 21, 1937. It was one of the first titles listed on the massive list of Disney assets, which numbered over a thousand.
We had a century+ worth of content, with only weeks to get through it all, and zero intention of turning into pumpkins at midnight! There were no magical shortcuts here, just teamwork. Avengers assemble!
The strategy for curating moments from this tremendous library began by simply avoiding the expected; we pulled anything and everything that evoked an emotional response. No one could know how these moments might come together, but we knew when they packed a visceral punch.
For weeks all you could hear was Disney pouring out of every . . . single . . . computer. We spent thousands of collective hours sifting through the archives, and if you look deep into our eyes you can still see flickers of pixie dust settling softly in the caverns of our souls.
Our first work in progress was roughly 6.5 minutes, the next was 7 minutes, and after about three weeks of “We gotta add X and Y and ESPN” the story grew to over 14 minutes long (insert Home Alone scream face here—don’t worry, it’s Disney owned).
We’ve seen it more times than we can count, yet still we manage to get the feels when the final frame fades away.
Our Team takes a moment to “think happy thoughts.” It was late. Blue Bottle Coffee downstairs was closed; we just got through reviewing the cut for probably the 100th time.
Infinite possibility. Innovation. Limitless imagination. Brilliant artistry. Magic.
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Happily Ever After
Disney CEO Bob Iger proudly presented this piece to the heads of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and some of the most legendary names in the business. The feedback was “emotion and artistry come to life.” It was their first taste of what Disney+ could be and we were told, after the final frame, they all sat in stunned silence. That still kinda blows our minds.
