Disney wants to use your viewing history to personalize your park experience

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Disney could soon start using your Disney Plus viewing habits to influence your experience at its parks — and vice versa. In an interview at The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live event, Disney CEO Bob Chapek said the company’s working on a way to tailor both experiences based on how you interact with its physical and digital offerings.

“If you’re on Disney Plus, we should be aware of what happened, what you experienced, what you liked, the last time you visited a park, and vice versa,” Chapek explained. “When you’re in a park, we should know what your viewing habits are on Disney Plus.”

Chapek cites Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride as an example, noting that the company could eventually track that you went on the ride at one of its parks and then use that as a way to curate the content you see on Disney Plus. “What you get is special programming tailored to Pirates of the Caribbean that would be unique to people like you that is personalized towards your preferences,” Chapek states.

When asked when Disney could start rolling this program out, Chapek said the company’s currently “putting the arms and legs on it right now” but didn’t provide a specific timeline. This isn’t the first time Chapek has hinted at bridging its Disney Plus and Disney park experiences, either. In September, Chapek said in an interview with Deadline that Disney wants to bring “the two pieces of the Walt Disney Company into one, for one common guest experience” across its streaming service and its parks.

All this is supposed to help Disney build up toward its goal of providing a “next-generation storytelling” experience, the phrase it uses in place of the “metaverse.” In line with this goal, Disney has dived further into augmented reality (AR), introducing its first augmented reality (AR) short film, Remembering, on Disney Plus in September, as well as new AR lenses parkgoers can access in the Disneyland app. The company has also been experimenting with its own line of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for almost one year now and hired Mike White to head up its next-gen storytelling plans in February.