The Disneyland Resort has kicked off its “World of Color Road Show,” where it plans to bring elements of Disney’s newest attraction—the World of Color in California Adventure Park—to four cities in California this month.
The show is switching its iconic wall of water—where it projects images and scenes from Disney movies—with landmarks and giant screens in San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles.
“We’re taking an opportunity to take this out to our four key markets,” said Lisa Beckett, Disneyland Resort vice president of regional marketing strategies.
The cities will each feature a different theme, giving viewers four different World of Color experiences, according to Beckett.
Disneyland plans to transform iconic structures and buildings, like the U.S.S. Midway Museum in San Diego and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, into giant screens with digital projection technologies.
Viewers will be able to view the show online and vote for the starring color in each night’s show.
“We will do live (shows) and webcasts to build awareness in the market,” she said. “Guests at home will be able to vote on the theme of the night and what we’ll be able to project.”
The park also has teamed up with radio stations to alert listeners about the shows.
The Walt Disney Co. Anaheim operation premiered World of Color in June.
The water show is the first installment in a $1.1 billion makeover of California Adventure, which opened in 2001 and has failed to live up to attendance expectations.
The company also has included World of Color in its “Summer Nightastic” campaign to get people to visit the Disneyland Resort during the summer.
In addition to TV spots, the park launched a viral video campaign on Facebook, which creates a TV commercial with personal information provided by the Facebook user.
“Each time you run this video it will grab different pictures from your Facebook library and (it’s) something that you can pass along to friends,” Beckett said.
Soccer Club Sponsors
The U.S. may not have won the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, but the amount of people who watched the defeat has advertisers interested.
Fullerton-based California State Soccer Association-South has seen more companies looking to advertise at soccer events and with the club.
“Part of it is the national recognition soccer received during the World Cup,” said Bill Lewis, director of marketing for Cal South. “The other part is advertisers want to tap into a passionate group of people who are active in the sport.”
Colorado’s The Sports Authority Inc. was the latest to sign on as the club’s official sponsor.
The sporting goods retailer will be the title sponsor of Cal South’s 2011 State Cup and also has access to its members.
The soccer club—one of the largest in the country—has seen membership grow nearly 2% from last year, to 160,000 members. Nearly 45% of the members are Hispanic, according to Lewis.
“We’re going to end the year with an increase in membership,” Lewis said. “Our members haven’t cut soccer from their lives as many expected.”
Cal South had been working with other national advertisers on short-term marketing agreements throughout the economic downturn, much of which has led to longer sponsorship agreements.
“In some cases, we have taken on short-term marketing programs in order to prove to other corporate entities our business model,” Lewis said.
The agreement with Sports Authority came after Cal South launched two marketing campaigns for Pittsburgh-based Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc.
“One of the reasons Sports Authority came on is because our two short-term Dick’s Sporting Good agreements were very successful,” Lewis said. “They saw what we did for the competition and gave us a call.”
The club did two geographically-targeted direct mailings to Cal South members driving traffic into Dick’s Sporting Goods.
The club also has done short-term marketing programs with South Carolina’s Denny’s Corp. and New York’s Verizon Communication Inc., Lewis said.
In addition to Sports Authority, the soccer club has seen a number of national advertisers signing longer-term deals, including Oregon’s Nike Inc., Wisconsin’s discount department store Kohl’s Corp. and Emeryville-based Jamba Inc., the holding company that owns and franchises Jamba Juice smoothie stores.
All-Star Food Duel
The local Anaheim operation of Philadelphia-based Aramark Ltd. was busy during Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game with a number of marketing promotions.
The food catering and beverage services company works with Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim Convention Center, Honda Center and Grove of Anaheim and hosted several promotions throughout the five-day event, including a dueling barbecue with chefs from the American League and the National League.
The company enlisted Orange-based public relations firm Westbound Communications Inc. to handle public and media relations for the promotions that went on during MLB’s All-Star FanFest fan convention and the Home Run Derby and All-Star games.
“We had some great response from the fans,” said Joaquin Quesada, district manager for Anaheim’s Aramark sports, entertainment and conventions division.
In other Westbound news, the company nabbed the New York-based Public Relations Society of America Silver Anvil award for the shop’s work on the Interstate 215 widening project in San Bernardino.
The award comes on the heels of two new hires.
The firm brought on Jhovanna Midencey as an account coordinator for the Orange office and Kelly Koehler as an account coordinator for the San Bernardino office.
