• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, January 3, 2023

Apple TV+ has hired a top Disney+ marketing executive best known for selling Star Wars and Marvel movies to the world.

Ricky Strauss spent more than nine years at Disney, where he most recently served as president of content and marketing for Disney+. He helped guide the launch of the service and also acted as president of programming for Hulu and Disney+. 

Apple has received awards from its original content, but some believe that Apple TV+ market share viewership and subscriber count is still lower than it should be.

The appointment of Ricky Strauss should change that. Based in Culver City, he will lead consumer marketing campaigns, creative advertising, media and promotions across original series and films for Apple’s streaming platform. 

Strauss now oversees the campaigns across original series and films for the company, which is led by heads of worldwide video Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht. He left Disney+ in early 2021 as part of a series of executive exits.

Disney+ launched in November 2019, the same month as Apple TV+. Apple Insider reports that it initially set a goal of 60 million to 90 million subscribers by the end of 2024. Instead, Disney+ achieved 118.1 million by November 2021, but by that time growth began to show signs of slowing.

Early in his career, Strauss served as president of Participant Media, overseeing marketing, production and acquisition for a range of socially relevant and commercially viable films, television programming and publishing efforts, including 2011 Academy Award-winning "The Help," "Contagion," "Good Night and Good Luck," "Syriana," "The Kite Runner," "The Visitor," the Academy Award-winning documentaries "An Inconvenient Truth," "The Cove," "Waiting for Superman," and "PAGE ONE: Inside the New York Times."