Photo via Wikimedia Commons
Now in its eighth year, the annual gathering is where Disney kicks off its annual promotions, showcasing the latest hot attractions and news. This year was no exception, with Disney showing off new concept art for the Up-themed bird show headed to Animal Kingdom, giving details on the Star Wars hotel and showcasing the previously announced Incredibles float for Disneyland’s Paint the Night parade.
But it looks like this year many of the social media influencers in attendance forgot to do their homework before the event. During the presentations by Disney, social media was flooded with inaccuracies and dated material being presented as brand-new.
Even simple things like the iconic Mickey Waffles were inaccurately described as "Mickey pancakes." Another influencer posted a tweet stating Disney was announcing an upcoming Up-themed TV show, except they weren’t. The confused blogger thought the live action show at the Animal Kingdom was going to be a TV show.
Then there were the tweets of shock when Disney gave details on projects announced months, sometimes years ago. Tweets like “Omg! A Star Wars hotel coming!!!!!” filled the hashtag for the event. That hotel was announced in July with much fanfare; more details were given on it earlier this year at a different Disney conference; both times there was coverage of the new hotel by plenty of mainstream media.
Other bloggers were surprised to hear about projects that are even older. Exclamation points and surprise rang out as Disney rehashed announcements made well over two years ago, including a new land for Tokyo Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland. Both of those projects have seen numerous updates at Disney conferences and multiple Disney Parks Blog posts on them.
Other bloggers tried to chime in and keep the news being announced by those in attendance accurate while message boards and chat rooms of Disney fans were filled with comments on how clueless many of these influencers seemed to be.
In the end, the conference was filled with much less excitement than many of the social media influencers seemed to show, but all that excitement paid off for the seemingly clueless influencers as Disney gave them a cruise to cap off their busy conference week.
With all these expenses paid by Disney and with all the inaccuracies, one has to wonder if this the best use of that advertising budget. Perhaps Disney should just stick to billboards and Good Morning America features.
