Disney is moving into its Asia future with a Watch app update that will treble on-the-go content, a first-of-its-kind music initiative, a never-done-before pop-up channel and a posse of strong local girls to lead the way.

Disney’s Watch app update is on its way to Asia in the next few months, part of an ongoing audience engagement strategy that will give fans whatever they want whenever they want it in a safe and secure environment.

While the team works on trebling the content offered on the authenticated Watch app update, Disney’s Southeast Asia bosses pushed the licensing envelope with the first-ever limited-edition pop-up HD channel focused wholly and totally on Star Wars.

The dedicated Star Wars channel rolled out in Malaysia in early September in partnership with Malaysian platform Astro and will run for two months until the beginning of November. Star Wars HD airs 27 hours of programming, including five Star Wars features – The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The channel will also carry Star Wars documentaries; Lego Star Wars features (The Padawan Menace, The Empire Strikes Out), the Lego Series (The Yoda Chronicles and The New Yoda Chronicles), and Star Wars Rebels season one. The channel is available for RM19.90 for a two-week subscription through Astro Best or Astro-on-the-go.

There’s also the first co-operation between Disney Southeast Asia and Universal Music Group on an album with local artists such as Anggun, Raisa, Noella and Regina. The album was released at the end of September.

Natasha Malhotra, The Walt Disney Company Southeast Asia’s general manager, branded media and content, says the way forward is “not just about putting content on TV and mobile and tablets, but also how we’re engaging with audiences”. This includes custom-made short-form content, strategies for social and other digital platforms, and music platforms such as Vevo, Spotify and iTunes.

These are exciting times, she says. “There are multiple platforms and multiple ways for us to interact with our audiences around our stories and characters,” she said during the ContentAsia Summit in Singapore in September.

Audiences, she adds, “are playing our games on our gaming apps and on our websites, they’re participating in our events... So while this landscape is challenging, and we’re all trying to navigate our way around it, kids and families are spending more time with our brands than ever before”.

Like everyone, Malhotra expects change to continue as the digital future unfolds. This includes the way success is defined and measured in the new world. “We’re probably not going to be seeing the ratings we saw five years ago, and we don’t even know how reliable those will be because they don’t really express the total reach story. Technology is moving so fast that measurement is not keeping up.”

Television, she adds, retains an important role in the digital landscape. “We really believe that television is still a very important form of entertainment in our region, it brings families together for a shared experience,” she says. Against this backdrop, Disney continues to build channel brands – Disney Channel, Disney XD, Disney Junior – into premium family entertainment destinations.

“This continues to be a priority for us, and really supplementing that with a host of products and digital services such as Disney On Demand, Disney Movies On Demand; our partners’ OTT services like Astro On the Go, Starhub’s TV Anywhere platform, Indovision’s TV Anywhere platform; and of course our own Watch apps,” she says.

Local relevance is another priority. In Indonesia, for example, the current objective is “to build a locally relevant entertainment brand that kids and families will not only enjoy but also trust... the We Love Disney initiative was born with that in mind,” Malhotra says.

The Indonesian project with Universal Music “celebrates incredibly talented local artists through Disney music... our timeless classics”. The Bahasa Indonesia album with iconic songs is part of a programme that includes consumer products, a concert, a live 90-minute TV show, and a host of social and digital content from music videos to behind-the-scenes, making-of clips.

While local acquisitions true to the Disney DNA can be difficult to find, at any one time Disney airs at least two or three shows out of Southeast Asia. Including Japan and Korea, local content on the channel could rise to as much as 25%.

Local programming across the region is being stepped up in both acquisitions and co-development. New initiatives are being built on past acquisitions of Asian animation, such as BoBoiBoy and Super Strikas from Malaysia and Rob the Robot from Singapore.

“We’re really committed to nurturing the creative ecosystem and the animation production companies in our region,” Malhotra says.

Among the productions in development is a long-form version of Oddbods with One Animation in Singapore. Oddbods, originally developed as a short-form series, is scheduled to debut on Disney channels in early 2016 as a half-hour show. The theme is finding the funny side of life; “It’s got a lot of humour, it’s fun, it’s funny, it’s very heartwarming, and it’s full of optimism. It has all the elements that we value at Disney,” Malhotra says.

Among these values is taking the Disney princess franchise beyond being all about glittering tiaras, beautiful dresses and true romance. “We’re really trying to break that stereotype and go back to a much more value-driven approach,” Malhotra says, pointing to films such as Brave and Tangled.

“We are inspiring kids to believe in themselves and follow their dreams and realise their fullest potential. It’s a much more value-driven approach around strength and determination and persistence and kindness and compassion,” she adds.

The Asia application involves girls in Southeast Asia who embody these values, including an award-winning go carter, a black-belt tae kwon do and a surfer. Malhotra says these girls aren’t just wearing the clothes. “We could have taken the easy way out, we could have cast models, but we really wanted to find kids, girls, from Southeast Asia, who really embodied these values”.

“This integrity makes the spot shine with something special,” she says, adding: “It’s one of my favourite campaigns... not only as a woman but as a mother of a three-year-old girl I think it’s really important to bring these values into this franchise”.

This article first appeared in ContentAsia Issue 4, 2015, published in September 2015