Davis ThinkingThis spring, Universal Orlando will open the much-anticipated Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which it promises will be "unlike any other experience on earth." If the park succeeds with what it's got tucked up the sleeve of its flowing robe, there's going to be a new owner of magical theme park experience (that sound you just heard was a 81-year-old mouse shaking in his over-sized yellow shoes).
The mouse may be dead to many netbook users, but if Disney has anything to do with it, The Mouse will remain alive and well for young technophiles. This week, Walt’s little company announced that it has collaborated with the unfortunately-named ASUS to launch the Disney Netpal.
As interesting and important as micro-blogging and other momentary, disposable bits of culture might be, I tend to be more interested in the larger patterns they can help reveal — not the chatter itself. Recently, the former has helped me tune into something intriguing: an emerging meme about brand voice.
If Disney’s latest strategy works, moppets across China will be saying “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” in a most delightful way. And with perfect diction.
Recently, I wrote of my interest in branded commodities and provided some fine examples of how this complex form of brand management can be done correctly. In the “never do this” category, I must now offer the other end of the spectrum.
The Disney studio, which is to unveil its production slate this spring, is backing away from one-off comedies like "When in Rome" and "Confessions of a Shopaholic," according to people familiar with the studio's new gameplan. In their place, Disney plans to focus on films that are essentially brands—like a planned Muppets movie—that can be exploited across its network of theme parks, videogames and commercial products. The recent success with "Alice in Wonderland" has given a new team of executives who run the studio confidence in their approach.
Credit Suisse's report picks its 27 elite brands of tomorrow based on a deeper analysis of their potential. Most of the picks are brands that are "transforming," making the leap from niche/emerging players into powerful mainstream brands. Brands like Trader Joe's and Hyundai. These are brands that offer investors attractive returns, some risk but not as much as early-stage brands that may never make it over the hump once the initial rush of growth and enthusiasm is over. Only two early stage brands make the list: Facebook and Comac, a Chinese aircraft start-up.
If any company seems well-positioned to both influence and profit from a generation of environmentally aware youth, it's Walt Disney Co. And Robert Iger, president and chief executive of Disney, insists the company is doing just that. Mr. Iger sat down with The Wall Street Journal's Alan Murray to talk about the new green strategies the company applies to everything from its theme parks to its movie studios, as well as changes Disney has seen in consumer attitudes. They began the conversation by talking about the company's conservation campaign—Friends for Change—which so far has reached more than a million children, he says.
"Caution. Not all hazards are marked." I couldn't help but notice this sign on the side of a ski trail during a recent vacation in the mountains. As I slowed my descent I thought about how this sign could apply to any number of things in this crazy world. Being in the brand business, I also thought about how apt they were relative to navigating the current marketplace. It's one thing to watch as consumer attitudes shift and you alter your product or service to meet the new conditions. It's another to sense that something's on the horizon and be the first in the category to address it. The ability to do so has always separated the good brands from the best brands.
Disney, the company that created "the happiest place on earth" and cornered the market on pink, is embracing a darker aesthetic as it reaches out to an unlikely audience for new merchandise: female "goths." In the run-up to the March 5 opening of director Tim Burton's movie "Alice in Wonderland," Walt Disney Co.'s consumer-products division is aiming its marketing firepower at young women and teenage girls, particularly those who gravitate to darkly romantic entertainment like the "Twilight" series.
Is Apple's new e-book store a model for the television industry? It is clear the existing TV arrangement, under which cable operators sell packages of channels on behalf of media companies, is fraying. Fights between the two sides over subscription fees are escalating—another such dust-up looms this year when Time Warner Cable's distribution agreement with Walt Disney's channels, including ABC and ESPN, comes up for renewal.
Executives at Microsoft are fond of saying that its subscription gaming service, Xbox Live, should be thought of as a cable channel. They want Xbox to be seen not merely as a gaming machine for teenagers, but as a media portal for parents and grandparents, too. The company is even producing shows for users: it is in the middle of the second season of “1 vs. 100,” an interactive version of a game show that was on NBC. The content ambitions do not end there. Microsoft has held in-depth talks with the Walt Disney Company about a programming deal with ESPN, according to people close to the talks, who requested anonymity because the talks were intended to be private.
The charge of marketing departments has always been to connect to people in an authentic and impactful way. Reaching out to eco-consumers gives brands an opportunity to develop a distinct voice in the environmental landscape. Making that voice a sustainable voice, one that can weather scrutiny, marketing fads and tough economic times, calls for a strategically sound and authentic campaign.
Hollywood loves a format war. First VHS saw off Betamax in the great home video battle of the 1980s. More recently, Blu-ray won the right to succeed the DVD when it was preferred by film studios to rival HD-DVD technology. However, as Hollywood looks to the digital era, the industry is split on how to manage the distribution of movies to TVs, computers and hand-held devices, setting the stage for its next great technological tussle. In one corner is Walt Disney and its Keychest product, which it describes as "enabling technology" that allows consumers to buy or rent a film and then view it on any device they choose. In the opposing corner is Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, a coalition of retailers, hardware makers and film companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Netflix and Sony.
Imagine a planetarium-style presentation about the future of technology, followed by a tour of dozens of hands-on exhibits — whether of sandlike microparticles that flow like liquid in a beaker, pictures that appear three-dimensional or concrete that floats. Is it the latest science museum, or a new Disney attraction? No, it’s the “World of Innovation” showroom, a cornerstone of the 3M Company’s customer innovation center at its headquarters in St. Paul. In a world of online user communities, social media, interactive blogs and other technological means for companies to elicit customer feedback, you might think that face-to-face interaction is a thing of the past. Think again.
The global downturn put some U.S. theme parks into bankruptcy and upended grand plans for new ones in the Middle East. But in Asia, a development boomlet is under way, as operators race to roll out parks and add attractions to draw in the region’s growing middle class. A Universal Studios is set to open early next year in Singapore at Resorts World at Sentosa, a sprawling development that includes a casino. Over the border in Malaysia, ground has just been broken on the first Legoland in Asia, due to open in 2012. In Hong Kong, the $750 million redevelopment of Ocean Park is to be completed in 2013, while Hong Kong Disneyland Resort recently began a $465 million expansion project that is to add three areas by 2014. And last month, Disney finally won approval from the Chinese government to build a theme park in Shanghai; it is expected to open in five to six years.
For decades, the Walt Disney Company has largely kept Mickey Mouse frozen under glass, fearful that even the tiniest tinkering might tarnish the brand and upend his $5 billion or so in annual merchandise sales. One false move and Disney could have New Coke on its hands. Now, however, concerned that Mickey has become more of a corporate symbol than a beloved character for recent generations of young people, Disney is taking the risky step of re-imagining him for the future. The first glimmer of this will be the introduction next year of a new video game, Epic Mickey, in which the formerly squeaky clean character can be cantankerous and cunning, as well as heroic, as he traverses a forbidding wasteland.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Walt Disney Company is close to unveiling new technology to allow entertainment companies to distribute media to consumers using computers and cell phones, rather than on DVD and television. The technology is code-named Keychest and sounds like its the for-pay web service that Disney CEO Bob Iger announced back in July. The service would basically let consumers pay one price for permanent access to content from a number of different devices — like set-top boxes and mobile phones.
Disney will give free admission to its parks to 1 million people who complete a day of volunteer work. It's an amazingly smart marketing tactic, and it has strategic implications for every business should consider. In many ways, Disney is a unique case. Babies are born with the brand identity pre-programmed in their brains, which means that every human being walking the planet is likely to be aware of the brand and, unless they're active evildoers or otherwise twisted, associate it with at least the appearance of wholesome goodness. Disney has branding problems like the Earth has issues with rotation. The challenge is to get people to do something with all that awareness.
Moving to reinvigorate some aging corners of its domestic theme parks, the Walt Disney Company announced plans over the weekend to modernize its Star Tours rides and greatly expand Fantasyland at Walt Disney World in Florida.
Anthropological dreams are made of this: helping Disney and Marvel manage their rapprochement. Nothing short of heroic effort will do. Disney is, after all, a pretty good marker for all that is mainstream about American culture. Marvel is, by deliberate contrast, darker and less predictable. One corporation turns in towards the gravitational center of our culture. The other prefers to plot a course for the margin, for the uncharted, for the unknown. I mean, this can't be a match made in heaven. It's going to be tricky, complicated and, possibly, agonizing. Right?
Disney's announced acquisition of Marvel Comics delivers 5,000 cartoon characters that can provide fodder for movies, books, games, plush toys, and amusement park rides. I'm not sure what this says about the future of the entertainment industry, or that what it says is particularly encouraging. Even though there's an infinite amount of creative content getting splattered all over the Internet, it seems there’s a shortage of material. Well, that's not exactly true: the "material" that entertainment colossi like Disney requires needs to evidence two qualities: first, it has to be good, however that term is subjectively applied, though objectively possessing the capability to uniquely accomplish an entertainment purpose for which people will pay real money. So the term isn't synonymous with the generic "content" that everyone is celebrating online these days. Second, it has to already be popular.
Mickey Mouse is bringing in some muscle. Significantly beefing up its stable of characters, Walt Disney Co. announced Monday that it had reached a deal to acquire Marvel Entertainment Inc., the comic book company whose superheroes have become Hollywood blockbusters, for $4 billion in cash and stock. The acquisition hands Disney a treasure trove of pop culture figures, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, the Hulk, Captain America, Thor and the Fantastic Four, among a roster of 5,000 that it hopes will inspire countless movies, television shows and video games.
A technician in a black lab coat gazed at the short, middle-aged man seated inside the Walt Disney Company’s secretive new research facility here last week, his face shrouded with eye-tracking goggles. Read ESPN.com on that BlackBerry, she told him soothingly, like a nurse about to draw blood. “And have fun,” she added, leaving the room. In reality, the man’s appetite for sports news was not of interest. (The site was a fake version anyway.) Rather, the technician and her fellow researchers were eager to know how the man responded to ads of varying size. How small could the banners become and still draw his attention?
Imagine a small girl holding a brand new toy for the first time. The colors and contours light up her eyes; her mental gears crank as she examines the product, figuring out its purpose. Then, she smiles as she happily joins the new, imaginary world from which the toy was originally born.
The moon may not be in the seventh house. And only an astrologer knows for sure if Jupiter has aligned with Mars. But it seems like the dawning of the age of Aquarius on Madison Avenue, as images and sounds from the 1960s become increasingly popular in advertising.
Creating a product, service, or brand experience is a puzzle where all the pieces need to be present... and neatly fit together. If you recall some of the best experiences of your life - whether a vacation, a business meeting, or a retail/restaurant experience - I'll bet what made it so great was that "everything came together."
If I were a betting man, I would say this is finally going to be Strawberry Shortcake's year. It seems like at each Licensing Expo, American Greetings unveils a "new" Strawberry Shortcake to licensees in the hope that the 1980s children's phenomenon can compete against more recent children's powerhouse brands such as Hannah Montana, High School Musical and Disney Princesses. And this year is no different. Yet again, Strawberry Shortcake has a new look, a new world and a new story line for licensees.
Culture is the cumulative concept that encompasses knowledge, belief, customs, practices and any other habits acquired by people as members of society. A culture operates primarily by setting loose boundaries for individual behavior. Culture, in effect, provides the framework within which individuals and households function. A major consequence of culture is its impact on consumption patterns of individuals and institutions. Depending on the underlying cultural philosophy consumers tend to follow certain consumption patterns. Successful brands have been able to adopt their branding strategies in line with this dominant cultural philosophy and weave their brands into the cultural fiber.
Aflac will debut a 30-second TV spot this weekend cross-promoting Disney-Pixar's first 3-D film, Up. This marks the first commercial to feature the insurance company's newly introduced tagline, "We've got you under our wing." Pixar handled the animation for the spot, which features characters from the film.
In light of rising childhood obesity rates and the general confidence in supermarket sales, Disney, the world’s top licensor, is steadily making the push to realign its brand with a healthier image, targeting kids with fruits and vegetables instead. The savvy marketing move appears to be working too, as sales of the Disney Garden line were up 70 percent in 2008, a trend that can at least partially be attributed to consumer attitudes about the products.
Value building is not a new concept. In good times and bad, smart brand marketers have always recognized the need to build value and differentiate—to make their brands a little better than competitors by adding a new feature, creating a special promotion or forging a unique alliance with another brand. What’s different today is the targeted relevance of value building. Faced with a protracted global economic recession, established brands are searching for ways to add maximum value without cheapening their image or undermining profits. Some brands are out-smarting and out-performing their competitors because of value-building strategies.
Disney and YouTube are in the final stages of negotiations to put clips from ESPN, ABC and other Disney assets on YouTube, according to sources familiar with the situation. The two companies would share revenue, with Disney controlling the ad inventory; YouTube and Google could get some inventory to sell. As important, YouTube would refer back to ESPN.com, ABC.com and the other Disney sites. Disney declined comment; a YouTube spokesman said the company does not comment on rumor or speculation.
To promote the first full-length theatrical film launched under its year-old Disneynature documentary label, the Walt Disney company is offering to plant a tree for every U.S. ticket it sells during the movie’s first week of release.
It's a smaller world after all at Disney's theme parks. Grappling with the deepening recession, Walt Disney Co. announced plans Wednesday to shake up its parks and resorts operation, setting the stage for job cuts in the coming weeks.
From Lost to Wall-E to Disney.com, the media giant proves itself an exceptional idea factory and hit maker. Where do its creative heads find inspiration?
Recession and changes in consumer habits lead to surprising 32% drop in quarterly earnings.
Walt Disney Co. is making a push to crack a market that few media companies have been able to conquer -- boys aged 6-14. Next month, the company will launch a boy-focused entertainment brand called Disney XD, consisting of a new cable television channel, a comprehensive Web site with games, music, videos and social networking.
Last month, F. A. O. Schwarz opened a make-your-own Muppet service in its flagship store on Fifth Avenue, the “only place in the world” where you can get a customized Muppet, though it will be soon joined by an online shop. For $130 plus tax, you can walk out with a Muppet of your very own — not the Miss Piggys, Kermits and Gonzos of the Muppet world, but Whatnots, the generic everyman Muppet.
Walt Disney Co. has struck a deal with Verizon Wireless that will allow it to remain in wireless contact with its theme park visitors -- even when they step outside the turnstiles in Anaheim and Orlando, Fla.
Disney still peddles all those things. But now the company also sells $3,900 designer wedding gowns — no characters in sight — and women’s cashmere sweaters “inspired by Tinker Bell.” Interior design offerings include $2,800 leather club chairs and $6,000 chandeliers patterned after the Art Deco décor in Mr. Disney’s former office. One of the company’s new products: couture soap. Welcome to Disney, the “lifestyle brand.”
Copyright © 2009 Davis Brand Capital. All Rights Reserved.
