When you think of winning, especially when it comes to a sport, you probably think of
a few different things.
Everybody singing We Are The Champions by Queen.
Confetti or balloons falling from the sky.
Pouring coolers over each other.
And, perhaps, yelling at a camera that you’re going to Disney World.
That last one is a bit odd.
Where did it come from?
Well, it’s thanks to an advertising campaign that has run for the last 33 years.
It is arguably Disney’s most successful marketing endeavor, and it all started with
an airplane.
The story begins in 1986, just two days before Christmas, at an altitude of 11,000 feet.
Over the previous nine days pilots, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager were attempting to set a
new record.
They had been taking turns piloting the Rutan Model 76 Voyager aircraft over a non-stop
course that took them over 26,000 miles around the globe.
As they landed at Edwards Airforce Base that December morning, they became the first pilots
to fly a plane around the world without landing or refueling.
They had made history, and it kicked off weeks of well deserved touring and celebration.
A month later and just sixty-miles away, in LA, another celebration was taking place.
Disneyland had just premiered a new ride called Star Tours.
It was the result of a collaboration with Disney Imagineers and the famous director,
George Lucas.
It would be just one of Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s many pushes to work with top tier
talent outside of the company to inject new life into the parks.
Eisner was throwing a star-studded party in honor of the ride and since the two did just
make aviation history, Rutan and Yeager were invited.
According to Eisner himself, it was his wife Jane who was making small talk with the two
pilots when she reflected on the weight of their accomplishment and casually inquired
as to what they planned to do next.
You know, probably in terms of flying and breaking world records.
However, with complete sincerity, the two responded that they were going to Disneyland.
A light-bulb went off at that moment, and Jane wasted no time in telling her husband
about the exchange, mentioning that it would make for a fantastic marketing concept.
Eisner agreed, and the following day he reached out to Disney World’s VP of Marketing, Tom Elrod.
Disney toyed around with the idea and settled on the concept of pitching the question to
athletes right as they’ve accomplished a major victory.
The athlete would, in turn, tell the camera and then the world that they’d be celebrating
that victory by going to Disney.
It would be the theme park equivalent of putting an athlete on a Wheaties box.
As Elrod put it later on, it had to be “something that captures the hearts of Americans.
It can’t be just another championship.
It has to be something that men, women, and children are familiar with.”
So they planned on starting big with Super Bowl XXI.
However, with the game just weeks away, they had to move quickly.
The Denver Broncos were set to face off with the New York Giants in Pasadena that year.
Elrod worked with the NFL to secure appearance deals with athletes from both teams so that
regardless of who won, they’d be able to make their ad.
According to Giants quarterback Phil Simms, he didn’t agree to the deal until the Friday
before the game itself, citing uncertainty as to whether or not the idea was a good one.
Athlete product endorsements were nothing new, but filming the commercial right there
on the field the moment they won?
That was new and potentially tacky.
But money speaks and let’s be honest, who here wouldn’t sign on to be paid 50,000
dollars just to read two lines?
With a final score of 39 to 20, the Giants won, and as the team headed onto the field
to celebrate, a camera crew rushed up to Simms and it was there that he earned the easiest
fifty grand ever.
Looking into the camera he shouted “I’m going to Disneyland!” three times, and then
shouted “I’m going to Disney World!” three times.
The editing team would have three takes to use for each line, and the two different lines
meant that they could cut a version of the ad for East coast audiences and a version
for West coast audiences.
While the work was easy for Simms, that wasn’t the case for the team making the ad.
Editors, using the footage they shot from the game, worked through the night to complete
both versions of the Disney commercial.
It was rushed so that they could be premiered over the air just 12-hours later during Good
Morning America.
Today media moves pretty quickly, but in 1987 it was considered impressive to shoot, edit,
and prepare a commercial for television in just half a day.
Elrod himself later called the process “total pandemonium.”
But it was pandemonium that paid off.
The ad was unique enough that it drew attention to itself, and the added element of bringing
Simms and his family to Disneyland the following day helped reinforce the concept behind the
commercial.
Disney decided to capitalize on the success of the “What’s Next” campaign by running
it three more times that year.
First, it was with the winner of the 1987 America’s Cup, Dennis Connor.
It was a big shift from the Super Bowl, but hey, America beat Australia, and apparently,
that was a big deal at the time.
Later in the year, Magic Johnson on the LA Lakers became the third athlete to speak the
phrase after winning the NBA World Championship.
This time, since the writing was kind of on the wall, the commercial was reportedly filmed
while there was still 60 seconds on the clock.
I normally don’t consider myself superstitious, but I probably would have waited for that
final buzzer.
But that’s just me.
Lastly, MVP Frank Viola of the Minnesota Twins recorded his lines after winning the 1987
World Series.
That initial year even brought about the first parody of the campaign, and oddly enough it
came from Disney themselves.
That fall Disney once again turned to Phil Simms to record a promo for The Disney Sunday
Night Movie on ABC.
The ad started out the same way the inaugural Super Bowl ad did but ended with Simms throwing
the football to his seven-year-old son, Christopher.
The announcer then asked “Now that you’re home on Sunday, what are you going to do?”
to which Simms replied, “My family and I are going to be watching the Disney Sunday
Movie on ABC.”
I couldn’t confirm whether or not they actually did.
Disney didn’t stop at athletes either.
In 1988 Gretchen Carlson, also known as Miss Minnesota was featured in the ads after winning
the title of Miss America.
That year Disney would also travel to Calgary to the 1988 Winter Olympics to tap the US
Olympic team for the commercial.
Since the team consisted of many athletes across many sports, Disney had to have multiple
camera crews at the ready at events in the event any one of them won a gold medal.
It was perhaps a complexity that explains why Disney would only turn to Olympic athletes
once more after that.
Finally, in 1988, perhaps at the zenith of the “I’m going to Disney World!” craze,
Disney World’s director of creative services, Debra Muenchow teased they hadn’t ruled
out the idea of expanding the campaign to the winner of that year’s US Presidential Election.
It, of course, never happened, but it illustrates that the sky was the limit for Disney.
I’d like to think that idea died when they realized that the politician who just became
President-Elect wouldn’t want their first words to the American people to be a pledge
to go on vacation.
Maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
Over the years there have been multiple athletes who have had the chance to do the commercial
twice, including Eli Manning, Emmitt Smith, John Elway, and Joe Montana.
However, there has only been one so far who holds the title of starring in three and that’s
Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, who appeared in the ads in 2002, 2004, and 2019.
The “What’s Next” campaign stands as the perfect example of clever marketing.
It was a simple idea born out of a casual conversation that, in less than a month, turned
into a commercial at the largest sporting event in the country.
It was just novel and unique enough to win over the public’s attention and fuel more
ads, turning that one commercial into a campaign that has run nearly every year for over three
decades.
It has become a part of pop culture, parodied and mimicked countless times.
“Woo!
I’m going to Disneyland!”
“Really?
Cause I’m a travel agent and I’ve heard nothing but bad things.”
It has featured athletes from football, basketball, hockey, baseball, soccer, the Olympics, and
NASCAR as well as Miss America and multiple American Idol winners.
Thanks to the rapid-fire nature of the campaign and the ubiquity of these different sporting
events, “I’m going to Disneyland!” became a catchphrase associated with winning, joining
the ranks of popping champagne bottles, pouring water coolers, and singing along to Queen,
and it all started with an airplane.
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