Introduction
This analytical treatise will attempt to explicitly review the actions of the Disney Company to attract its core customers. Besides, the treatise reviews the risks and benefits of expanding the Disney brand in new ways.
How Disney attract core customers
The marketing mix is a selling model which is made up of four elements such as price, product, promotion, and distribution. The Walt Disney Company owns a number of franchises. Examples are Mickey Mouse, Cars (film), Disney princess, Donald Duck, Disney Princesses, Indian Jones, Toy Story, The Lion King, and Monsters.
The company considers different market segments when tailoring products in order to attract customers (Kotler & Keller 2012). For instance, in the Middle Eastern market, the company has come up with products that suits girls in that location. An example of a product that suits the market segment is the Jasmine and Aladin.
The attire worn by the characters attracts girls in the Middle East since it rimes with their culture. Therefore, the product touches on their way of life. For promotion, the company uses girls from the Arabic origin to advertise the products. This has succeeded in attracting the target market segment (Kotler & Keller 2012).
In relation to pricing, the company uses skim pricing strategy since demand for its products are relatively inelastic. Concerning the place, the company uses the Walt Disney Company TV channel to keep in touch with the target segment. Apart from the TV channels, the company uses its music channel to reach out to the market segment.
From its inception, the Disney’s product line objective has been to provide quality products at the convenience of the clients. The services offered by the company targets families. The company has expanded from the US to all other continents due to its customer-centricity business model (Kotler & Keller 2012).
Specifically, the company has experienced metamorphosis from the loss leader pricing into the ‘good, better, best’ pricing due to the acceptance of its products by the satisfied customers. Therefore, the Disney Company has an unlimited potential for further growth as more people embrace their affordable prices and big discounts.
In addition, the company has a flexible and proactive advertisements meant to appeal to each customer segment. The company also has series of after sales services such as discounts, coupons, and rewards through the annual global family events. The company uses direct, online, and database marketing through its Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce model (Kotler & Keller 2012).
Expanding the Disney brand in new ways
Benefits
Disney Company’s business mission is to be the global leader in provision of affordable, convenient, and quality services within a sustainable business environment. The company’s mission has remained feasible since the mission aims at addressing the immediate and future needs of customer within friendly prices. Therefore, expansion will increase the company visibility and revenues in the global market.
Through expansion of the Disney brand in new ways, the current product multi-branding as a positioning strategy will enable it to survive competition. Besides, the company will manage to balance the elements of intangibility, inseparability, and heterogeneity in the 4Ps of its market mix, due to the improved product visibility for each target segment (Bert 2011).
The company, “together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise with four business segments, these are, media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment and consumer products” (Walt Disney 2014, par. 8). It trades in assorted products such as cable television, publishing, movies, broadcasting, and web portals among others.
Therefore, expansion will help the business to maintain its business leader position. Besides, the Disney Company portfolio will expand since its various online platforms may be instrumental in attracting more customers. As a result, the demand for the company’s products and services will continue to grow since the objective of this expansion strategy is to attract and retain customers, who want affordable goods and services.
Risks
The potential risk factor that may face the Disney Company, through expansion of product line, is the possibility of rejection by the target market since most of the customers are used to common brands. The current economic down swing, as a result of the economic meltdown in 2009, has slowed down the market growth for the industry in which the Disney Company operates in.
Besides, competition from established firms will reduce the market share since other companies may go into the same business line of the company has intentions of expanding into.
Finally compliance with health, safety, environmental, and other regulations will be a major hindrance to the future expansion of the company since the US has very strict rules on the externalities, as a result of a business activity. These regulations change from time to time (Bert 2011).
Conclusion
The Disney Company has multiple products besides an effective marketing strategy. The business has remained sustainable due to diversification of products. The company uses the elements of affordable pricing, advertisement, and product uniqueness to attract customers. The main benefit of expansion for the company will be increased revenues. However, the strategy may face the risk of product rejection.
References
Bert, R. (2011). Marketing channels: A management view. Sydney, Australia: Thompson South-Western.
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2012). Marketing management (14th ed.). New Jersey, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall
Walt Disney Company. (2012). Company Overview. Retrieved from <https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/about/>