Give a Day, Get a Disney Day

Best Multidiscipline Campaign & Best Cause-Based Promotion

Give a Day, Get a Disney Day
Agency: Disney Destinations LLC
Client: In-house

Walt Disney Parks & Resorts wanted to inspire one million people to volunteer in their local communities. They conceived the “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” program, in which the first one million people who donated a day of their time to charity received a free one-day ticket to either Disneyworld or Disneyland. Guests were also given the option to donate their ticket to a charitable organization.

The campaign involved PR, advertising, digital media, promotion, broadcast radio and television, including a tie-in with ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover, a Muppets viral video, events, community relations, CRM, park operations and more.

During the September 2009 kickoff, Disney sent 1,000 volunteers, including Disney employees and characters such as Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Muppets Kermit the frog and Miss Piggy to work on five projects across five cities. Following that was a 26-city tour that included entertainment, media and a volunteer project in each location. A street team passed out collateral that drove consumers online to share how they celebrate volunteerism for a chance to win a ticket and encourage them to sign up to give a day. The winners joined Disney Parks at a local volunteer event in each city.

At the campaign finale, a canned food sculpture, consisting of 115,527 cans, was unveiled in the shapes of Goofy, Mickey, Donald Duck and Pluto. It took more than 500 man-hours to construct, contained 44 tons of food and broke a Guinness Book World Record. The volunteers and media distributed the cans to food banks.

Overall, it took Disney just 67 days to reach its goal of inspiring one million people to sign up and commit to a volunteer activity.

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