For decades, Disney understood the power of keeping its most valuable content under lock and key.
The once-coveted Disney Vault made scarcity part of the strategy, with beloved films and characters carefully controlled and released on Disney's terms.
Today, that idea is being turned on its head.
Disney and TikTok recently announced a new partnership that will open assets from hundreds of Disney films and series to TikTok creators. Select creator videos featuring Disney stories and characters will also appear within Disney+.
The significance goes beyond where that content appears.
The line between professionally produced entertainment and creator-made content is becoming harder to define. A Disney story can begin with studio-produced IP, be reinterpreted by a TikTok creator, travel through a social feed, and ultimately appear alongside premium content in a streaming environment.
The vault isn't exactly gone. But the walls around who gets to participate in these stories, where they live, and how audiences experience them are becoming much more porous.
And that's part of a much bigger change happening across video.
For years, the advertising industry organized video into relatively neat buckets: linear TV, streaming, digital video, social.
Audiences have other ideas.
Short-form video is finding its way into streaming experiences. Podcasts have become increasingly video-first. TV and entertainment clips fuel social feeds. Creators sit alongside professionally produced content. And live sports increasingly move between linear television, streaming services, digital platforms, and social conversation.
TikTok is one of the clearest examples of this convergence.
The platform has helped change not just where people consume video, but what video looks like. Vertical formats, creator-led storytelling, faster creative cycles, native-feeling content, and participation have become increasingly important parts of the video playbook.
And the influence moves in both directions. TikTok says an average of 6.5 million film- and TV-related posts were shared on the platform each day last year. Nearly half of surveyed viewers said they subsequently watched a movie or TV show on streaming or television after discovering entertainment content on TikTok.
Social drives streaming. Streaming fuels social. Creator content intersects with premium entertainment.
The old boundaries are getting harder to see.
For advertisers, this creates a similar challenge.
A TikTok campaign isn't necessarily just a social campaign. It may be one expression of a larger video strategy that includes linear TV, CTV, digital video, and other social platforms.
Looking at each of those investments separately can hide the bigger story.
Is a brand increasing TikTok investment while pulling back somewhere else? Is a major television campaign being extended through creator-led social video? Is a competitor shifting its video budget toward CTV and social at the same time?
Those are increasingly difficult questions to answer from within a single channel.
The more useful question is becoming: How is a brand investing in video wherever its audience is watching?
That changing landscape is the idea behind Video Everywhere at MediaRadar: connecting advertising intelligence across linear TV, CTV, digital, and social to provide a more complete view of how brands invest in video.
And that view is expanding.
MediaRadar is adding TikTok to U.S. Social coverage alongside Instagram, Facebook, and X, giving customers visibility into TikTok advertising spend and creative in the context of a much broader advertising strategy.
TikTok matters on its own. But what it adds to the larger picture may be even more valuable.
As the boundaries between social, streaming, television, and digital continue to fade, understanding any one platform will tell only part of the story.
The future of video isn't about choosing between TV, CTV, digital, or social.
It's about understanding how they all connect.
Want to Know More?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR | Tom Bonelli
Tom Bonelli is a Senior Client Partner at MediaRadar, where he works primarily with Enterprise Publishers and Brands, helping them use competitive advertising intelligence to sharpen their strategy and stay ahead of the market.