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Brands awaken to celebrate Star Wars’ #ForceFriday

By Digiday  •  September 4, 2015  •

Since we’re just a short 15 Fridays away from it being released, the “unprecedented” global marketing campaign for Star Wars: The Force Awakens began today.

Disney is touting today as #ForceFriday with fans flocking to stores to get their hands on Star Wars merchandise. Similar to the craze that is Black Friday, Toys ‘R Us, Walmart, Disney Stores opened their doors at 12:01 a.m., enticing customers with the Internet-popular hamster-sized BB-8 droid and other toys.

Jimmy Kimmel, who hosts a late-night show on Disney-owned ABC, debuted Star War toys on his show last night. Wonder how he got that exclusive?

But much of the excitement could be felt online, too. On YouTube, the Star Wars channel is streaming an 18-hour “global unboxing” event hosted by YouTube personalities, and Twitter rolled out emojis that appear when the hashtag #ForceFriday is used.

Meanwhile on Snapchat, Target released a sponsored filter with Star Wars characters and its logo:

As for that hashtag, it’s been tweeted 68,000 times in the past 24 hours, according to social measuring service Topsy. Brands, which are the reason this so-called “holiday” was created, didn’t miss out on the opportunity to use the hashtag.

From Hallmark cards to American Tourister luggage, Disney seemed to have linked up with every company on this planet, ensuring that the craze will be unavoidable for the next several months.

Here’s how brands, both official sponsors and ones looking to just jump in, “celebrated” on Twitter: 

Image courtesy of Target.

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