The magic that is Disney

It’s 2026. I have just spent six hours randomly viewing ads on AdsoftheWorld.com. But I decided to pivot from the aggregator and go straight to the source.

That’s what brought me to the Fallon website, where the very first ad I came across was a lovely Disney ad.

 

Being a dad to an 11-year-old girl, I fell in love with it instantly.

The insight is simple and powerful, as most great insights are. Once a princess, always a princess.

The ad follows two girls who live opposite each other and become thick as thieves, playing princesses in their imaginary Disney world.

Then life separates them, only for them to find each other again years later, now with daughters of their own, playing with castles and Disney characters.

The ad moved me not just because of the girls’ mannerisms and behaviour, but because everything felt so right. The depiction of the elder sister as an evil Disney character, their carefree dancing on chairs, the paintings, and their simple exchanges of messages were all spot on.

As a father, I could relate to those moments completely. The drawings, the wild imagination, the sadness and anger of being separated at that age — all of it was depicted beautifully.

The ad had the Disney touch. It was almost four minutes long, yet it never felt like it.

And that’s when something struck me.

It’s been 20 years since I last saw a great Disney ad.

It was 2006. I was studying advertising in a small room in Pondicherry with Ram Sehgal, who was already a leading figure in advertising circles in India and internationally.

I was completely unaware of his stature at the time, but I did love his class. He would invite some of his old colleagues, and something he did one day became the beginning of a ritual that lasted over a decade.

He brought a Cannes Lions showreel into the classroom, and we went through some of the winners across different categories. The reel covered ads from 2001 to 2006.

Among several memorable pieces, I came across a couple of Disney ads that have stayed with me to this day.

They were part of a series called Magic Happens, which demonstrated the truly magical place that is Disneyland, and how families are brought together and adults become kids again.

Until then, I knew Disney as a brand, but I knew very little about Disneyland or the effect it had on people. I thought Disney was for kids. I was an adult already — I had just turned 22, perhaps — and imagined I had outgrown the Disney age group.

One ad featured a guy whose Donald Duck voice made his wife giggle uncontrollably. As goofy as it was, it was an act of love, and romance was rekindled just like that.

The other featured a couple. The girl is presented with a box that looks like a shoebox and, upon opening it, discovers a glass slipper à la Cinderella. She can barely contain her excitement and surprise.

There was something special about these ads. They were familiar, showed family dynamics we had grown up seeing, and captured the “Disney effect” on adults and families.

But what I took away from these ads was that Disney legitimised goofiness.

And that’s a philosophy I have followed to this day. Perhaps it’s what keeps my mind young and allows me to be carefree around my 11-year-old daughter, much to her embarrassment at times.

The ads were simple, the executions uncomplicated but highly effective. And I realised that advertising that speaks to the heart travels faster and stays longer than advertising that speaks to the brain.

Cut to almost a decade later. It’s 2015. My daughter is born and is quickly indoctrinated into the Disney life, and the life of a princess. She is introduced to Frozen, then Moana, and eventually to the OGs of Disney princesses: Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel and the rest.

Nine years after her birth, in 2024, she gets to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

She is awestruck. But so am I.

It is indeed magical. She is treated like a princess, not just by me but by the people around us. And if you stand back and observe, you see thousands of princes and princesses who have arrived at this place. Many are children, but many more are adults who feel like princes and princesses again. Proudly wearing tiaras and satchels, men wielding imaginary swords, people making goofy voices and dancing.

And I get to be my goofy self, too.

I pretend to be scared of a roller coaster, and my daughter genuinely believes I am. She really believes she has met Mary Poppins, Goofy and Mickey. And during the parade, perched on my shoulder, she watches Anna, Elsa, Aladdin and other Disney characters march past her and wave at her. To her, they are real.

The smile that appears on her face stays there for the next couple of days.

When I first saw those Disney ads, I knew there was something magical about them. They had a gem of an insight. Even though I hadn’t lived enough of life to fully connect with that insight, the execution, the music and the characters stirred something in me. Most importantly, they showed me that you should never kill the child in you.

I embraced the idea of being this goofy father to my daughter, of having unadulterated fun with her. And I was happy to discover that I wasn’t alone in this.

In my opinion, there are few better displays of free-spirited parenting than these two pieces of content.

The first is an Instagram post by Serena Williams during lockdown, in which she and her daughter dress up as princesses and dance in their living room. Serena wears her princess dress, sings her heart out and dances like nobody’s watching.

The other is the legendary Carpool Karaoke episode featuring Stephen Curry, in which he happily and proudly sings Moana. Like so many parents of children that age, he knows the songs from Frozen and Moana by heart—and sings them with the confidence of a child who has never once wondered whether he looks silly doing it.

Both moments capture the spirit of Disney and the magic of Disneyland.

And now, 20 years later, I have finally seen another Disney ad that moved me.

I am a father now, with a daughter who has lived through the phases depicted in the ad. Perhaps, along the way, I have even been that goofy friend to her. The ad moved me just as deeply as the first two did all those years ago.

It feels almost like a full circle. But knowing Disney, and the way it keeps drawing you in, I’m sure it’s really a growing spiral.