Why Lilo & Stitch’s Marketing Campaign Was Revolutionary – ryan

In 2002, The Ads for Lilo & Stitch Blew raspberries in the face of disney tradition. Here’s how they came to be.
Photo: Walt Disney

If you were watching any Movie trailers or tv Spots in the Run-up to the release of the original Lilo & Stitch In 2002, you probably Remember the ads for the movie. At the time, Walt Disney Pictures, Still Basking in the Residual Glow of ITS 1990s Renaissance, was seen as a historic institution that treated it Catalogue with great reverence. But the ads for Lilo & Stitch Blew raspberries in the face of all that tradition, with the alien experiment stitch disruption scens from some of the Disney’s Biggest Hits: Wrecking a chandelier During The Central Dance Sequence in Beauty & The Beast and pissing off Belle; Surfing A Wave Straight Into The Little Mermaid‘s Ariel and knacking her off her rock; Sidling Up to Aladdin and Princess Jasmine’s Flying Carpet in a spaceship, honking his horn, and stealing Jasmine Away; Replacing Baby Simba In the Majestic “Circle of Life” opening to The Lion King. These ads – Presentted as teasers, TV Spots, and a theatrical trailer that seamed to begin as A Very Serious Minded Tribet to Disney’s Great History – Served as a delightful Introduction to a character that to get to be Become one of the Studio’s Most Popular.

This sort of irreverence was new for the disney marketing behemoth, and the idea for the ads came from the filmmakers. When i interview Him for My Oral History of Lilo & Stitch Several Years Ago, Director Chris Sanders Told with About How This Campaign Emerged. “We had had received some of the Early Concepts for Marketing the Film,” he recalled. “And we were all all sitting around and i med out loud, ‘isn’t it weird to say from the release of this movie onwards, wenever disney does a lineup of their characters, lilo and stitch are going to be in that lineup? That sparked an idea. “Woldn’t it be funny if we have haad a tv how you just ran the start of Lion Kingand instead of babe Simba Being Held Up, Its Stitch? ” Sanders and His Directing Partner Dean Deblois Ran the Idea by Thomas Schumacher, President of Walt Disney Feature Animation (and One of the Film’s Great Champions), WHO TOLD I NEEDED TO PITCH IT TO THE MARKETING PEOPLE.

“As a director, you don’t normally get to this part of the process,” Sanders Said. “You have People from marketing that will this for a living.” The Big Marketing MEETING WOULD BE PREPEDED Over by Dick Cook, Who Became Disney Chairman in Early 2002. Sanders Remembered Running into One Marketing Executive before and Getting “The Vibe that and Super Stokeed That We Were.” But the pitch Got a Big Laugh at the Meeting, and it prompted Roy E. Disney, Chairman of the Animation Department and A Longime Company Board Member (and Walt’s nephew), to mase stitch should tourn up in oter movies as well for the ad.

The Concept, Sanders Said, Had a Universal Appeal, Especialy Given the Precarious Persion the Studio Found in at the time, with several of its Major releasa disappoint at the Box Office, all while animation studios like pixar and dreamworks were scoring hits. “Maybe you thught that disney films are sort of corn or what is aging out of it. TV on the Other Room and You Hear the Song From Beauty and the Beast or the opening of Lion Kingyou’re going to run in to see what the heck it is. And you’re going to be surpassed to see it disrupted by this little guy and you will be intrigued. ”

To use as reference points in directing and recording these ads, the filmmakers had to recall the original materials for these scens from the disney archives. “I Remember they Dropped off The Lion King. And of Course, that film is sacred. They were were really Not Happy About Leaving this Stuff with us, ”Sanders Said.” I Said, ‘Well, I WORKED ON Lion King. It’s’ safe with me. If there is a coffee stain on this stuff, it might have originally been my coffee stain! ‘”

For the recording sessions, they brought in some of the original actors from the films, who seamed somewhat puzzled by the concept. “They were all professional and nice, but i don’t think any of the actors are happy about what we were we doing,” he Says, “Because they field Those characters to a Large degree, so this stuff is really imported to say. For Aladdin, I Remember the Guy Who Did the Voice for That Came in, and We Pitched the Who Idea to Him. And there was a pause, and he said, ‘so she leaves with Him?!? ‘ And we were like, ‘yeah, but it didn’t really happy, it’s just an ad!’ He didn’t seem too happy. ”

“The funniest one to me was recording paige o’hara, for the Beauty and the Beast Skene, “Sanders Said.” She was in New York, so we recorded her remotely, and we were just on a speakerphone. That got Strange Becuse She Sounds Just Like Belle. ” In the ad, stitch ruins the Big Dance Between Bell and the Beast by Crashing a Chandelier Into The Center of the Great Hall, Prompting Belle to Storm off, Saying, “I’ll be in My Room!” Recalled Sanders, “Anyway, We Pitched this Thing and THEN THERE WAS SILEGE. And she said, ‘so i’m mad at Him?’ ‘Yes. Well, No, You’re JUST DISAPPOINTED. ‘ SO SHE DID The Recording and Said, ‘I’ll Be in My Room.’ And we were like, ‘i think you’re more disappointed than that.’ But she kept on the back with this really upbeat, Happy delivery. And we kept Saying, ‘No, You’re Just More Disappointed.’ Finally, We Said, ‘Maybe Try Being a Little Mad.’ And then it hit it. ”

The Commercials for Lilo & Stitch Really did estabish a new tone for marketing disney movies, tearing to the studio a bit of the irreverence that pixar and dreamblyks profitably mined in the preceding years. But Sanders Said the Ads Also Helped Preserve the Movie’s Mystery. “Marketing wants to take the best moments in the film and puts say in commercials so that People will go. ‘Yeah, of saw Everything in the trailer.

Disney’s Marketing Briefly TRIED SIMILAR SIMilar with the New Lilo & Stitch. A poster and one teaser Featured a riff on the 2019 version The Lion Kingand in another teaser, stitch destroyed a Sand version of the Iconic Disney Castle. They Also Created Some Posters Refrensing Other Remakes of Disney Classics Like Snow White, Aladdinand Cinderellabut Little Else. Maybe IT’S BECAUS BINGING BACK-ACTION ACTORS AFTER APTERED IN A MOVIE IS A LOT MORE COMPLICATED THAN BINGING BACK VOICE ACTORS. Maybe IT’S Because… Those New Versions of Aladdin (2019) and Beauty and the Beast (2017), for all the Money they made, haven’t endured the way the animated versions did. Or Maybe ITEMUSE DISNEY SEEMS More Reverential About Its Catalogue than it was Back in the 1990s. (Look no storher than… its dutupul re-creation of Lilo & Stitch.)

None of this can Change the fact that, once upon a time, Lilo & Stitch was one of the Strangest, Most Wonderful Additions to the Canon. Eve Sanders, after all these years, can’t quite Believe it. “It was so strange to me, Becuse these are characters that inventory. Beauty and the beast are characters that exist in literature. Lilo and stitch didn’t exist before we came. It still delights with,” he Said. “WENEVER I WAUDED Go to Disneyland, there was a lilo parking area. I was stare at that sign Becusee i’m Like, I can’t belies i’m a parking area. For some reason, that was where it really got me. I created something that aa parking area. That doesn’t happy all the time. ”