Director of Partnerships @ Grüns | Founder, The Branded Moment | Creator Sharing Brand Case Studies, Trends, & Insights
Is anyone else super fascinated by the Mickey Mouse IP drama? The 1928 version of Mickey Mouse entered the public domain on Monday. This means that anyone can now copy and reproduce the 1928 version of Mickey Mouse without permission. Disney previously lobbied to extend the trademark and was successful 1976 and 1998, but the time has come for them to give it up. A number of Mickey projects unrelated to Disney have already been announced including: 🐭 Horror Films 🐭A Memecoin 🐭Indie Video Games 🐭AI-Generated Content My POV is that this actually could be good for Disney. The Mickey Mouse brand was losing its luster. Simply put, Gen Z doesn’t feel the same attachment to the original Disney characters as millennials, Gen X, and older. It could make Gen Z/Alpha more aware of the history of Mickey and therefore more connected to it. It could reinvigorate an entire generation’s interest in legacy Disney characters. But what do you think? Think this will be good for the Mickey Mouse brand/Disney? #brand #mickeymouse #marketing
I'm curious to see how John Oliver's team continues to work the character into bits on episodes of Last Week Tonight.
Devin Kunysz
8mo
Feel pretty confident it will NOT be good. Mickey Mouse horror films might spark Millennial interest in Mickey Mouse, but the problem is that's not going to help them with their core brand purpose which is entertaining children and families. Although the real question is who beyond marketing thought leaders will actually recognize Steamboat Willie as Mickey Mouse....
Laura Winston
8mo
It’s the copyright that’s run out, not the trademark. Trademark rights last forever as long as there is commercial use by the owner
I’m here for a Mickey memecoin 😂😂
John Linford
8mo
The horror films are undoubtedly going to live in my nightmares. Nothing sacred anymore 😂
Adam Levine
8mo
Could be good but also could be a huge brand risk! The brand could be diluted or tarnished if people misappropriate Mickey and publish him in a way that waters down its value / image. E.g. if Mickey is shown as aggressive or starts talking with a super complex vocabulary or stuff like that
Jason Hasenberg
8mo
I’m hoping it helps! It’s been incredibly fascinating!
Senior Director of Consulting, rEvolution
8moSomething similar happened with Winnie The Pooh last year...which is why you saw the release of Winnie The Pooh: Blood & Honey. I don't think damage was done to the brand of WTP due to the fact that they didn't have the machine driving interest surrounding the release of the film, aside from a couple people seeing the trailer on social media. The issue with "re-invigorating" Gen Z is ensuring that the proper marketing machine gets put behind whatever production/content...and you'll need something extremely viral or something that Disney would be aligned with to get that massive machine behind it. And as per the latter, if Disney is that jazzed about something, you would think that they would just do that thing on their own. 🤷♂️