• by Tameka Kee , September 13, 2007

Propelled by the sequel to blockbuster "High School Musical," Disney.com broke its all-time traffic record this August--nabbing more than 23 million unique visitors, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. It's a 24% increase year-over-year, and a strong signal that Disney's revamp of its kids and family-focused Web portal has been a success.

The spike also means more impressions for content sponsors like HP and General Mills--partnerships strengthened by the media giant's reorganization of its ad sales teams earlier this year.

Disney integrated ad sales across network and cable TV, online, radio and print in the restructuring, and has just begun to offer partners like Visa multi-platform buys as a result.

This October, for example, the media giant will promote Thrillville, Lucas Arts' theme park simulator game, with both TV spots and sponsorship of the online D*Concert series.

According to Brad Davis, Disney's senior vice president of online sales and West Coast multimedia lead, the sales team is getting ramped up to provide clients with more 360-degree solutions--with aggressive goals set for the coming year.

Disney.com is the main portal, but the media giant offers families a number of genre-specific Web properties--including Disney Xtreme Digital (XD), the social network where the D*Concerts are broadcast, and a casual games section that aims to snag Moms and Dads.

As part of the site redesign, Disney added more interactive features, such as video player widgets (complete with sponsor branding) that users can embed on their own personal Disney XD pages.

The changes have also increased user engagement, as in August, the media giant saw a 37% month-over-month increase in game starts on Disney XD, and a 16% increase in video starts. They clocked more than 1 million new site registrants--with traffic to the home page alone up by more than 30% from July.

The success of "High School Musical 2"--the sequel to Disney's popular original movie appears to be a major factor in the traffic spikes, as the film premiered on the Disney Channel and Family Channel in mid August.

During the premiere weekend, daily unique visitors to Disney.com spiked by 72% versus the three previous weekends, with an average of 8 million daily page views to Disney XD--according to the media giant's own numbers. In fact, on the Friday that HSM2 premiered, Disney XD (and advertisers like Walmart) garnered the most page views ever recorded--since the property launched in February.

Disney.com offers standard banner and display options, rich media and video ads, as well as custom-built advergames, and the branded widgets.

The company also plans to roll out mobile sponsorships, with standard banner and SMS ad solutions to be available on the mDisney WAP service this fall.

One place that will remain decidedly ad-free is Club Penguin, the virtual world Disney acquired over the summer. According to Davis, Club Penguin "will not be accepting any advertising," and will not do so for the foreseeable future.