Teen Beach Movie

Network: Disney Channel

Date: July 19, 2013

Viewers: 8.4

Key to Success: Enlist Disney properties and Disney stars

Disney has a well-documented history of eventizing its TV premieres and TV movies, and this summer’s musical “Teen Beach Movie” is no different.

Last week’s Disney premiere of its big summer event was a year in the making. Disney execs saw the rough cut last year and knew they had plenty to work with. “The biggest strength was the movie itself,” according to Ron Pomerantz, Disney Channel’s VP of marketing and creative. “We had the time and we had an amazing product, which are two great assets.”

The movie, based on two teens stuck in a movie-musical turf war on the beach (aptly named “Wet Side Story”), features some new and existing Disney stars, ready to ride the Disney Channel wave of stardom. On-air, Disney featured the premiere, then a sing-along version, a live chat and a dance-along version that starred the movie’s lead, Ross Lynch (who also stars in Disney Channel’s “Austin & Ally”). “This builds him as a star as well as reaching out to the audience,” said Pomerantz.

They also featured Lynch in special effects videos with the movie’s icon: a giant beach ball.

Enlisting the popular dot-com world of Disney, the movie had themed games and quizzes—are you a biker or a surfer?—leading up to the premiere. There were also daily beach parties at Typhoon Lagoon at Disney Parks, a massive consumer products line, a 10-city mall tour, party kits sent out to market the film as a “family movie night” and a full week of pre-premiere viewing on WATCH Disney Channel and SVOD.

By making it available a week before its on-air premiere, Disney was hoping for a more involved version of word-of-mouth, and got it. People took advantage of watching early, then passed it along by watching it with friends or organizing viewing parties.

“We thought it was definitely a re-watchable movie, and we wanted word of mouth to drive it. We thought it was strong enough to make it available ahead of time,” said Pomerantz.

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