Historian also draws inspiration from best pals Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Pluto and Goofy to highlight ingredients to lifelong friendships ahead of July 30.
Disney has launched a new adult range to celebrate this week’s International Friendship Day (July 30) and 90 years of friendship between Mickey Mouse and his friends.
Being loyal, trustworthy and kind are the top components for maintaining lifelong friendships, according to new research revealed today (July 27).
The poll of 1,000 adults was commissioned to launch the Stay True campaign, which celebrates the 90 year on-screen friendship of the ‘Sensational Six’ – Mickey & Minnie Mouse, Donald & Daisy Duck, Pluto and Goofy.
Yara Shahidi, Gigi Hadid and Chance the Rapper helped kick off the campaign with posts celebrating their best friends Sayeed Shahidi, Ehsan Shahidi, Olivia Perez and Taylor Bennett.
As part of the launch, Disney is also setting the #MickeyFriendshipChallenge, and offering complementary digital thank you cards, fun meme-able videos and stickers to help groups of friends create bestie selfies, share their special moments and thank each other for staying true.
The Sensational Six are famous for their loyalty to each other – a trait that the research revealed is the number one quality people search for in a best friend (79%). This was followed by someone who is trustworthy (66%), kind (53%), understands and accepts their faults (48%) and shares the same values or moral code (45%). The average person has four really close friends and met their best friend by the age of 19.
With a shared history spanning almost a century, the Sensational Six continue to be a symbol of ensuring friendship. To celebrate International Friendship Day, historian Brian Sibley, has taken inspiration from their onscreen adventures to highlight the ingredients to lasting friendships, showing that sometimes life can imitate art.
Friendship traits highlighted include loyalty (like Pluto always being by Mickey’s side); kindness (like Donald taking on an extra job to pay for a big date with Daisy); understanding of faults (like Donald’s feistiness or Goofy’s foolishness); and shared interests (like Mickey and Pluto’s love of fishing) among others.
To further celebrate International Friendship Day, shopDisney and Disney Store will be launching a range of new adult apparel and offering a host of complementary activities to get involved in via the Disney Destination of Imagination hub, such as Make Your Own Mickey Ears.
“Just as Mickey and the gang provide an unmitigated source of joy and happiness for each other, so does our own social circle,” said friendship expert, Irene Levine. “We can learn a lot from the way the characters treat each other over their 90 plus years of friendship.”
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