Disney Case Study

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Institution

The Walt Disney Company is a renowned family media and entertainment enterprise established in 1923. It is much diversified with five main segments internationally, which include parks and resorts, interactive media, media networks, consumer products, and studio entertainment. The company sets itself apart from other conglomerates through the power of franchising, and its CEO, Robert Iger, understands that quite well. He believes that the business magic, Disney difference, the company applies places Disney ahead of the other companies, thus giving it unrivalled success. The Disney Consumer Products (DCP) division oversees all the franchising, licensing, and merchandising of its properties such as Disney Princesses, Toy story and Cars. In addition, the company has invested a significant deal in marketing and branding its products, especially at the parks and via signage.

Disney values its customers and does not underestimate the power of social media. It relies on it a great deal to connect and interact with its loyal customers. Facebook has been Disney’s most preferred and successful publishing platform, with over 42 million fans. It has also done well on other platforms such as Walt Disney Studios where it has 6.4 million fans and garnered 12.5 million fans in Pixar Studios. Disney came up with its own publishing channel, Oh My Disney (OMD), which resembled Buzz Feed, a social site founded in 2006. The company studies its audience on the different platforms, and carefully selects the appropriate channel to post the relevant content. Although the content is specific for each channel, there is always some great degree of familiarity, which mainly includes Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) and photos. The company’s recent developments include digital publishing in the Android market in order to increase rapport with its loyal customers (Thomas, 2013).

The management appointed a dedicated team to facilitate OMD because keeping it up and running requires great commitment. OMD has come up with a Facebook fan page, which has attracted over 11,000 fans a few weeks after formation. In addition, OMD is also popular on Twitter and Tumblr. OMD site provides content that is user-friendly, relevant, consistent, and entertaining. The sites post Disney related editorials and articles such as Disney imagery and GIF’s, which can easily be shared and enjoyed. In 2011, the company launched Disney Baby, a social platform that engages parents of infants, and has attracted over 363,000 fans on Facebook (Warren, 2011).

Additionally, Disney’s products resonate with the audience’ needs through its heartfelt stories that capture both parents and children. The story content is original and relevant regardless of the age group. They have a vast range of movies with relevant messages, characters, digital and physical extensions, quotations, and imagery. In addition, their content is not always new and they rely on curating the existing ones by giving it an exciting twist. This makes their stories intriguing and suitable for the whole family, such that parents and children enjoy watching Disney films together. They update their material from time to time, and one can enjoy content created 20 years ago with the same amusement, for example, Forrest Gump.

Disney has taken the bold step of expanding its brand through franchising, which has come with its own share of risks and benefits. In order to break the monotony of classical animations, Disney embraced change to other forms of entertainment mainly through Parks and Resorts. This new business division was set up in 1955, and is centered on immersive experiences and storytelling, which revolutionized family entertainment. Globally, there are 43 Resorts and 11 theme parks in 5 excellent holiday destinations in Europe, Asia and North America. In addition, there are four Disney cruise ships, a vacation club, and Adventures by Disney, which is an enterprise that offers family vacation experiences globally. This new dimension has benefits such as attracting new customers from various regions in the world. It is dedicated to providing quality, family entertainment and leisure services thus embedding memorable experiences in most people’s lives. This has caused tremendous growth of the clientele base since the inception of the Parks and Resorts alongside radio and television networks such as ESPN Inc. and ABC Television Group. Another advantage of expanding its brand is the creation of increased revenue. Sale of its products and services to a diversified clientele base guarantees increased revenue. By featuring popular movie characters in their magazines, books, apparels, collectibles, and action figures, Disney has had high sales that have generated good revenue.

The risks involved, by contrast, include the challenge to retain customers following constant upgrading. For example, when Disney decided to change its line’s designer, it was unsure of the customers’ reactions. Although the line was less costly and exclusive, it was afraid that its customers would be upset by the change. However, it took the risk, and the reception was great since a video posted on YouTube attracted 1.7 million views. Another risk involved in expanding its brand is the high costs sunk in expansion of the brand. Franchising and brand expansion are expensive ventures, and Disney takes the risk to invest highly without the guarantee that the returns would measure up to the investment.

Disney has built an enormous empire over the past years through great marketing strategies such as franchising. It has also devised measures of interacting and reaching their customers by embarking on the social media platform such as Facebook and Twitter. In addition, it also created its own channel, OMD, to post relevant content for its customers. These strategies have helped them acquire more customers and maintain the loyal ones (Tracy, 2010).

References

Thomas, J. (2013). Disney All-In on Content Marketing With “Oh My Disney”. Post Advertising. Retrieved on 6 September, 2013 from http://www.postadvertising.com/2013/03/disney-content-marketing/

Tracy, R. (2010). The Business of Magic. The Daily Beast. Retrieved on 6 September, 2013 from http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/11/03/disney-s-powerful-marketing-machine.html

Warren, C. (2011). Disney Marketing: The Happiest Social Media Strategy on Earth. Mashable. Retrieved on 6 September, 2013 from http://mashable.com/people/christina/