Give a Day. Get a Disney Day

By: Carrie Bugg

In an effort to increase volunteerism in communities across America, Disney Parks launched its “Give a Day. Get a Disney Day.” campaign on January 1, 2010. The idea was simple: Families sign up to volunteer for one day at a HandsOn Network charity, and they receive a one day single park pass to Disneyland or Walt Disney World. The campaign goal was to recruit one million volunteers for the HandsOn Network. This goal was achieved in just three short months.

The HandsOn Network is the largest volunteer network in the United States with HandsOn Action Centers in more than 250 communities. Each year, the network provides about 30 million volunteer hours.

To get the word out about this campaign, Disney marketing and public relations professionals created a viral campaign centered on the Muppets. Disney produced multiple Internet videos and television commercials featuring our favorite Muppet characters performing various acts of community service in exchange for one special day at a Disney park. These videos are lighthearted and funny. Disney website visitors could forward the Muppet videos to their friends and family. This contributed to the rapid success of the campaign. Disney PR professionals took advantage of the networking capabilities through the Internet and let their audiences do some of the publicity for them.

After the campaign’s completion, Disney launched a series of videos following families participating in the volunteer efforts. These videos are posted on the Disney Parks website. Each video displays a different family and how they benefited from volunteering together. The campaign brought awareness to Disney and its efforts to make the world a better place to live.