I Put A Spell On You

 . . . and now you're mine! Or more accurately, we're all Disney's.

Hocus Pocus via TV Insider

Hocus Pocus is a film originally released in 1993 that tells the story of the evil Sanderson sisters, witches who are brought back to life on Halloween 300 years after being hanged and vow revenge. 

Their goal? 

"..find the book, brew the potion, and suck the lives out of the children of Salem before sunrise. Otherwise it's curtains. We evaporate! We cease to exist!"

Over the years, Hocus Pocus has gained a following so large that it has become a cult classic. 

"I Put a Spell on You," the song featured in the movie with Bette Midler's marvelous cover, is renowned (and the marvelous Ms. M makes it sound AMAZING).

Yet for a movie that is so well loved, it has horrible reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 38% on the TOMATOMETER with a total of 56 reviews while the audience score is 71% with over 250,000 ratings. What gives?

Well it turns out, it was a combination of a corporation wanting to make money and a groundswell that wanted more.

As ScreenRant breaks down, the theatrical release of Hocus Pocus wasn't great. The Disney corporation, never one to not try to recoup lost cash, immediately sent it to broadcast on the Disney Channel and ABC Family. It was added to the 13 Days of Halloween lineup which meant that it got a new audience every year. 

But the biggest reason? Nostalgia.

TheLily and ENews provide more info about the power of nostalgia making Hocus Pocus the hit of the Halloween season. 

Forbes analyzes the power of nostalgia marketing in millennials, making this the perfect area for the groundswell to rise up.

In an era where we are on our phones and every day seems like it brings a new calamity, millennials want to feel like they are living back in a simpler time again. 

Image via 9GAG

Disney, sensing an opportunity, took some time to listen to what the groundswell had to say about Hocus Pocus. And what the groundswell wanted, in pure nostalgic style, was a sequel.

Image via Time

Rumors of a Hocus Pocus sequel have been simmering around the Internet since the Internet basically began. In 2017, it was reported that a sequel would be coming, but without the starring trio. The groundswell had LOTS to say about that.

Image via Time

Image via Time

The people wanted a sequel, but they didn't want it without the original Sanderson sisters. No other actors would do. In 2019, People wrote a follow up article that a sequel would officially be going ahead, with no direct response from Disney as to whether Middler, Parker, and Najimy would be attached. Still, not a great response from the groundswell.

Image via CheatSheet

Earlier this year, Disney confirmed that the starring trio would be back for the sequel slated to arrive to Disney's streaming platform, Disney +, in 2022. And boy was the groundswell happy.

Image via 9GAG

Disney, as a large oligopoly, is not one that has to fear the groundswell shifting away from it like smaller organizations, but even Disney needs to stay relevant or risk losing its paying base. In this example, we see Disney utilizing some important groundswell strategies.

Twitter was where a lot of the dialogue was happening and it's where Disney obviously did much of its listening. As Li and Bernof tell us, Twitter makes it easy because anyone can follow anyone; posts are automatically public (unless you set your account to private) which means anyone can see posts and hashtags and spread community; you can easily inlcude links; and you can retweet content, which shares it across the groundswell at lightning speed. It's also the hub of creators, as we see via the memes and Tweets shared through the app.

By utilizing Twitter, Disney energized customers to be excited about the Hocus Pocus sequel by giving them content that they would want to share.

The groundswell also created its own Hocus Pocus community that allowed them to continue spreading the film. 

Image via Twitter

Searching Twitter for #HocusPocus or #HocusPocus2 offers an incredible amount of content that lets you know what the groundswell is thinking about the original, the incredible subculture it's spawned, or the upcoming sequel.

Disney's methodology of dealing with Hocus Pocus shows an incredible grasp of embracing the groundswell and tapping Twitter for its groundswell potential. They're moves that can be replicated by any large organization by searching for hashtags, seeing what gets retweeted, listening to what people have to say, and implementing it.

After all, 

Image via The Daily Geekette

What are your thoughts on how Disney tapped the groundswell via Twitter for Hocus Pocus 2?