A new Star Wars film is coming. The internet hasn’t shut up about it since it was announced after Disney acquired the rights to the franchise in 2012, and now it’s practically around the corner,

Disney has already been reaping the benefits of the most successful Sci-Fi franchises of all time since at least the 1980s, with the flight simulator opening in Disney Land in 1987, and has been a driving force behind some of the merchandising ever since. They may be the reason we had to suffer the existence of Jar Jar Binx… Who Knows?!

With a new film comes a new range of toys and merchandise. To celebrate the launch of their new range last week, Disney brought one of the most iconic scenes of the first movie to the streets of London, recreating Luke Skywalker’s trench run through 3D street art.

3D street art has been popular for the marketing industry for a while now. Anyone and everyone from soft drink brands to promoters for new film releases have been getting involved.

But why 3D street art? It’s seems to cost so much for something so temporary. More so than other pop-up events with rates for the artwork alone sometimes starting at £10k, plus having to then factor in in location fees, and occasionally security, to your budget.

To put it simply, it’s all about disruption. This piece was placed in a high footfall area in commuter-ville (AKA Southwark Bridge) so it was bound to make an impact. Even non Star Wars fans would recognise it and tell their friends/followers/fans about it. I, for one, found out about it courtesy of Event Magazine and went down just to see it even though it’s the complete opposite direction to where I live.

However, despite the online news articles to build awareness there wasn’t as much ‘social chatter’  as there could have been. I think this is mostly down to the lack of clear hashtag onsite and how there was no mention of the activity on the @Disney_UK Twitter account. The only promotional tweet regarding the launch is below.