5 hours assignment
Marketing Strategies and Programs
Chapter #3
A. Strategic Market Position
Mapping Paragraph:
Mission: The mission of The Walt Disney Company is to be one of the world’s leading producers and providers of entertainment and information. Using our portfolio of brands to differentiate our content, services and consumer products, we seek to develop the most creative, innovative and profitable entertainment experiences and related products in the world.
https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/about/
Disney’s mission is effective in terms of the organization’s broad resources, family-friendly image, wide and diverse market segments, and exclusive content advantage against competitors. Disney is loyal to their mission, and is one of the most powerful organizations in entertainment as a consequence.
Marketing Strategy:
Disney Plus does not currently have marketing strategies, because it has yet to be launched. However, Disney as a whole focuses on brand stories and content marketing with profits following from content popularity and brand extensions.
“Disney's ‘content marketing’ strategy goes in reverse compared to most brands. Meaning, where most brands start with a physical product and then build a story around it in the form of ‘content marketing,’ companies like Disney do exactly the opposite. They create a brand story - a movie - and then build products around that story.”
Generic Competitive Strategy: Differentiation
Disney Plus will be highly competitive in the industry due to the exclusivity of their content and service. They will be pulling all video from competitors and only streaming it on Disney Plus. With Disney’s wide range of consumers, and diversity across the entertainment industry, it is expected that they will be competitive based on the brand reputation and private content.
Market Position Against Competitors? The market position of Disney Plus against competitors is better and unique. Better, because it can reach a wide variety of audiences (especially through marketing) whereas competitors are limited in advertising expansion. Disney is in the beneficial position to affordably advertise innovations on ABC, ESPN, Disney Channel, etc. to consumers of all ages and demographics. In comparison, streaming services such as Netflix advertise internally, on social media, or through physical advertising making range limited, and advertising channels expensive.
Strengths vs. Weaknesses
Disney’s strategies are highly effective, and are predicted to continue to be effective with the launch of Disney Plus. The brand image, well established strategies, abundant resources and marketing channels, and expected quality are all strengths that put Disney in a advantageous position to reach success quickly.
Weaknesses, however, are existing and possibly threatening for Disney. Disney Plus may be “late to game” for streaming platforms with several already existing with highly popular content. It could be harmful for Disney to be “copying” existing services without a cost driver advantage, making a conversion valueless to consumers. Disney could avoid these weaknesses by advertising the content instead of promoting the service as a whole, increasing the perceived value of Disney Plus.
B. Product Portfolio Analysis:
Marvel Cinematic Universe: Cash Cow
Star Wars: Star
· Main Saga Movies
· Rebels
· Star Wars Stories
· Clone Wars
· The Mandalorian
· Cassian Series
· Resistance
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dog
Disney Nature: Problem Child
Pixar: Cash Cow
· Incredibles
· Toy Story
· Coco
· Cars
· Finding Nemo
Disney Animation (LA Remakes): Star
· Little Mermaid
· Snow White
· Mulan
· Beauty and the Beast
Disney Channel: Cash Cow
ESPN: Cash Cow
ABC: Cash Cow
Freeform: Dog
· The Middle
· Siren
· Secret Life of an American Teenager
· The Fosters
High School Musical: Problem Child
Cash Cows
Disney has many Cash Cows that consistently bring in revenue. These include Marvel, Pixar, Disney Channel, ESPN, and ABC. Because the entertainment line up of each of these franchises appeal to various segments of consumers, Disney is able to reach a broad audience. Disney can better deliver specific types of entertainment to consumers. As it continues to purchase other franchises such as Twenty-First Century Fox, Disney will strengthen its hold over large amounts of the entertainment market.
Stars
Disney currently has a couple large investments that can be considered stars; the Star Wars franchise and the recent trend of creating live action remakes of their popular animated movies. While these have been considerably successful it has yet to be seen if they can become a consistent source of revenue. The Disney Plus service will provide Disney with an effective platform to expand these franchises, but it will take substantial investment up front to do so.
Dogs
While Disney has an extensive library of popular, in demand content, some of its products no longer hold much appeal. The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has fallen out of public appeal yet Disney continues to produce more movies. Disney’s Freeform platform can also be considered a dog. Freeform is a platform for watching reruns of old television shows. While the shows are still popular to certain audiences there is little opportunity for growth. We would recommend divesting Pirates of the Caribbean as it is no longer in strong demand and it would be best to move on to other more profitable projects. Due to its low-cost nature, Freeform will continue running as a supplement to Disney’s other programming.
Problem Children
DisneyNature is currently not hot content for Disney, however, we believe it will gain a larger audience once added to Disney Plus. DisneyNature options will be more readily available to consumers, hopefully sending interested viewers to Disney Plus instead of finding content on Animal Planet or the Discovery Channel.
Disney has announced that a reboot of High School Musical (a television series) will be launched within Disney Plus. We have decided that Disney should divest this reboot because the content will be outdated. The audience for High School Musical has outgrown the material, and young audiences will have little appeal or nostalgia for the franchise resurrection.