Let’s Talk About the D23 Thing Nobody Understood
During the 2024 D23 Expo, confused fans watched with their jaws agape as Disney…tried something.
Simultaneously, 1.1 million chronically online gamers stared in confusion at the odd freemium sales pitch Disney was hosting.
None of it made sense to almost anybody, which was…maybe the point?
Let’s talk about the D23 thing nobody understood and the three generational problems Disney is trying to solve.
About the D23 Parks Panel
During the, I dunno, 16-hour Disney Experiences parks panel at D23, Disney suddenly switched gears.
The change was dramatic and atonal with the rest of the presentation. However, this moment served its purpose.
Suddenly, Disney live streamed its parks panel to all interested players on Fortnite.
With the realm of the world’s most popular video game, its developer can livestream events.
Photo: EPIC Games
Fortnite has previously hosted a Travis Scott concert, played a BTS video, and aired the trailer for Tenet.
Obviously, not all these events proved successful, but some of them went viral and spawned countless memes.
Photo: Fortnite
Once, Fortnite even collapsed its own universe into a black hole, and if none of this makes sense to you, that’s okay. It just means you’re old.
A few years ago, the greatest crisis in education was that children learned they could play Fortnite on their phones in class.
Photo: Epic Games
Statistically, national test scores have been in steady decline since then. You can decide for yourself whether there’s a connection.
Still, the point stands that kids of this generation have played Fortnite since they learned to walk.
Photo: EPIC Games
That’s part of the reason why Disney recently purchased a portion of Epic Games, but there’s a second explanation that matters more.
Before we get to that point, we should discuss Disney’s generational problems it’s struggling to overcome.
How Disney Marketed in the Before Times
Photo: wirefly.com
In 2007, 122 million people owned smartphones. Coincidentally or not, the Apple iPhone launched in June that year.
By 2013, nearly one billion people purchased smartphones annually. That’s one-eighth of the world’s population.
In calendar 2023, the smartphone industry registered sales in excess of 1.3 billion.
So, the phenomenon hasn’t died down, and I think it’s safe to say that half the world’s population owns or has access to smartphones.
Photo: verdemedia.com
Somewhere along the way, parents realized that smartphones doubled as exceptional babysitting devices.
At a young age, a generation of children started second-screening their viewing habits, a parental shift with dramatic ramifications for Disney.
Photo: Disney
Throughout its existence, Disney has taken a multi-generational approach to attracting fans.
Disney content is accessible to children but entertaining to adults.
Photo: Disney
Importantly, Disney has maintained this connection through unprecedented changes in the broadcast industry.
Disney technically started during the early days of cinema, which was still the glory days of radio.
Walt Disney
Then, when television became a thing, Walt Disney identified an opportunity and dove in.
Disney hosted programming on ABC, including the legendary broadcast of Disneyland’s opening day, which 90 million viewers watched.
Photo: Disney/Kobal/Shutterstock
The marketing team cleverly invented the Mickey Mouse Club to direct-dial children, and that concept has persevered through the years.
I love relaying the fact that Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera were Mouseketeers, as was Keri Russell.
Photo: Disney
You wouldn’t think that trio has much in common, yet here we are.
Once broadcast television introduced cable programming, Disney created quite the monopoly with the Disney Channel and Freeform.
Disney Fails on the Video Game Front
Disney
Alas, since 2007, kids have grown up with the power to watch what they wanted.
Since the smartphone was already babysitting them, parents had less need to stick kids in front of the television to watch Disney.
Photo:Ivan Marc / Shutterstock.com
So, Disney watched the reduction in the effectiveness of children’s television marketing.
Conversely, this generation of kids has learned to play video games.
Nintendo
Whether it was Fortnite, Minecraft, Goat Simulator, or something Nintendo/Playstation/Microsoft, kids learned to play.
I’ve read some citations suggesting that as much as 95 percent of Gen Z and Gen Alpha are gamers.
Nintendo
Here’s a Visual Capitalist chart suggesting the current numbers as 94 percent for Gen Alpha and 90 percent for Gen Z.
Combining those totals, an average of seven out of every eight (!) people ages 27 or younger are gamers.
Image: The Healthy Mouse
Guess what Disney has completely whiffed at doing well?
Do you remember Disney Infinity, the short-lived video game franchise? That wasn’t a random attempt by Disney.
Photo: mentalfloss.com
Executives tried to meet gamers where they lived, but the attempt failed mightily.
While Disney trumpets the fact that nine of its video game franchises have earned at least $1 billion in revenue, it’s almost entirely via licensing.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Disney’s attempts at targeting gamers utterly failed to the point that it gave up all attempts a few years ago.
The company closed its gaming division, Disney Interactive, leading to this memorable headline/article in 2021.
(Photo by Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP) (Photo credit should read TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP via Getty Images)
This writer got the story right. When Disney admitted it couldn’t make a decent video game, it unlocked a new revenue opportunity.
Licensing the Disney brand to others has proven lucrative, but there’s always been a desire to get back in the game.
Given the above data, you can understand why.
Explaining the D23 Thing Nobody Understood
Photo: D23
At D23, Disney quietly revealed its next strategy for marketing to Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
You can already guess what it is given the context of the discussion, but please allow me to reinforce the idea via data.
(Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)
Guess how many people play Fortnite daily! You’re not going to because it’s a brain-freezing number: 30 million.
Perhaps more impressively, 222 million gamers play Fortnite at least once a month. That is the game’s tally for August to date.
(Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Hamleys)
As a reminder, August isn’t over yet. More than 2.7 percent of the world’s population has played Fortnite this month.
In case you didn’t know, Epic Games is the owner and operator of the Fortnite universe.
Photo: Disney, Epic Games
Disney just acquired a nine-percent stake in Epic Games for $1.5 billion.
You shouldn’t look at that purchase as an investment in a company’s future, even though it’s most assuredly that.
Disney
Instead, the more accurate evaluation is that Disney just made a billion-dollar ad buy. Yes, I’m serious.
For the cost of $1.5 billion, Disney can now direct-dial those Gen Z and Gen Alpha gamers it missed due to the erosion of linear television.
Photo: Washington Post
In the short term, Disney can sell them digital outfits that cost literally nothing to manufacture.
Disney is charging good cash money for something whose only expense is programming…and Epic Games pays for that.
Photo: skillastics.com
Thus, Disney will gradually pay down part of its $1.5 billion investment. In the interim, we’ll get more of whatever this was:
The gamers won’t understand why they’re watching, and the Disney theme park fans will have no idea why it’s happening.
Still, this is the kind of cross-generational tactic Disney needs to perform to reconnect with the people 27 and under the old marketing methods missed.
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