Rose Parade 2016: ‘The Bachelor’ (with Ben Higgins), Disneyland among ABC fixtures

Yes, the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena is a fun New Year’s tradition for those out there who are sober enough from the night before to watch. It’s beautiful, it’s scenic, and if you live somewhere that has a mountain of snow on the ground, it makes you really jealous of California.

For ABC, it’s also clear that this is a shrewd marketing opportunity, as they present promotional floats that fulfill a purpose of being nice additions to the parade while also smart vehicles for their brand. Here’s two that stood out over the course of the broadcast.

Disneyland – Hey, how can you be sad after watching dancing Stormtroopers and Mickey Mouse right next to each other? Sure, this was a lengthy advertisement for a theme park, but it’s the new year! It’s a time where you want to be optimistic and believe in magic, and this checked off all the boxes. One of the nicer, and larger, floats to go through the parade this year.

The Bachelor – The float celebrating the ABC show contained a little bit of everything, from leading man Ben Higgins to some familiar faces from “Bachelor in Paradise” the past two seasons: Jade Roper, Tanner Tolbert, Ashley Iaconetti, Samantha Steffen, and Lacy Faddoul. Sure, it is extremely over the top, but did you really think that we were going to get something different for a float celebrating this show? The saddest thing about the float is that ABC made us wait until the very end of the float in order to see it.