Strategy

We know that two metrics directly influence a Disney guest’s long term value: the number of different categories they engage with, and the depth of that engagement.

Disney’s EMEA email programme was an engine of this engagement, but in 2022 response had started to falter, as disrupted customer behaviours settled into new patterns.

Our strategy needed to influence both of these levers – while allowing us to collect valuable, actionable customer insights – conveying the joy of Disney within this typically performance-focused channel.

We set out to elevate the inbox experience beyond imagination, delivering the innovation, magic and wonder that Disney is famous for. We’d stretch the art of the possible to make emails more interactive and more clickable than ever before – an unparalleled, year-long customer experience.

This focus on hyper-interactivity had two core strategic purposes:

1. Wow customers with something they’d never seen before, inspiring action through a true sense of wonder.
2. Drive maximum engagement within the email itself. Following Apple’s Privacy Policy changes, click-based interactivity would allow us to identify active customers, deepen our first-party data, and progressively optimise the effectiveness of the programme and future communications.

The programme was ambitious to say the least – a year-long strategy, planned around 18 tentpole moments in the calendar and deployed across 13 EMEA countries. Behavioural segmentation, created from multiple data points, ensured that we maximised every cross-sell opportunity across Disney’s portfolio – from movies and merchandise to theme parks and West End shows – and properties, such as Marvel and Star Wars.

Solution

Crafting truly enchanting email experiences can be challenging. However, our approach was centered on bringing the Disney magic into our messages.

Typically, interactive experiences need tools like JavaScript – but those don’t work in this channel.

We had to find a way to make HTML and CSS work in ways they weren’t designed to. We iterated until we had a code base capable of delivering interactive and responsive content reliably, in every possible email client. And we created fall-back web pages that seamlessly mirrored those interactive experiences for guests on email browsers that couldn’t support them.

This technological backbone then enabled us to create a programme of phenomenally innovative, unique campaigns across the year.

Imagine being able to complete a word search or a crossword actually inside an email? Our enchanting Encanto and Disney Knowledge emails did just this, with tap to play interactivity and a pop-up keyboard.

Other emails invited customers to interact in new ways. For the Andor release, the entire email was concealed behind an imposing ship, which flew out of the way only when tapped, revealing the drama and spectacle of the Star Wars Universe.

For Marvel’s She Hulk, guests had to ‘crack’ the screen before they could access the content.

Halloween offered the perfect opportunity to create a tarot card-inspired interactive game. Tap a card and see it flip before your eyes, revealing the spooky characters.


Our tech innovation delivered pure magic in each email, with relevant cross-sell and commercial calls to action providing more ways to engage.