PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING_GROUP 10

ASSIGNMENT 14.1

DISNEY BRANDING STRATEGY

INTRODUCTION TO THE WALT DISNEY
From humble beginnings as a cartoon studio in the 1920s to its prevalent name in the entertainment industry
today, Disney proudly continues its legacy of creating world-class stories and experiences for every individual
of the family. The mission of The Walt Disney Company is to entertain, inform and inspire people around the
globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling, reflecting the iconic brands, creative minds and innovative
technologies that make ours the world’s premier entertainment company. (Disney)

The company together with its subsidiaries and affiliates is a leading diversified international family
entertainment and media enterprise with the following various business segments like Media Networks; Parks,
Experiences and Products; Studio Entertainment; and Direct-to-Consumer and International.

The following content lays down an in detail analysis of Disney’s brand and its strategy.

WHY BRANDING?
The mission of The Walt Disney Company is, “To entertain, inform and inspire people around the globe
through the power of unparalleled storytelling, reflecting the iconic brands, creative minds and innovative
technologies that make ours the world's premier entertainment company.”

With the help of branding, companies can create greater engagement, differentiation, and loyalty within the
consumers.

To improve customer engagement and increase brand loyalty, Disney is open to all kinds of suggestions on a lot
of media handles like Twitter and Facebook. The Disney Institute also has a lot of offerings and learning
experiences like; Advisory Services for Organizations, Disney Institute ​Professional Development Courses,
Disney Institute Summits.

A brand is a product or a service whose dimensions differentiate it in some way from other products or services
designed to satisfy the same need.

What differentiates Disney from its competitors is the uniqueness of products offered in the entertainment, mass
media, and amusement park industries. It offers a wide range of products which depicts a tangible difference.

1
 PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING_GROUP 10

THE ROLE OF BRANDS

Role of Brands for Consumers
A brand is a promise between the firm and the consumer. It is a means to set consumers’ expectations and
reduce their risk. There are numerous ways in which Disney meets its customer expectations:

● Knowledgeable staff​: Training happens year-round and employees are constantly reminded to give
consistent guest experiences. They take a comprehensive and strategic approach that reinforces their company
values, history, and operating philosophies. New employees go through six weeks of training before they even
see a guest. During training, Disney focuses on an experience mentality, rather than a task mentality.

● Masterful Personalization​: Disney has a unique way of taking an experience meant for millions and
personalizing it for the individual. When guests arrive to pick up their tickets, they can get a button that tells
why they’re celebrating at Disney World, whether it is a birthday, marriage, retirement, or first time visiting.
They aim to treat each guest individually and create personal interactions.

● User-Friendly Mobile App​: The My Disney Experience App contains all the information which one
needs. It’s laid out well and even has GPS-enabled walking directions between attractions. One can easily find
park hours, show timings, wait time for rides, and order food so that they don’t have to wait in lines. It is also
personalized according to the individual. All of the tickets, dining reservations and photos are in the app along
with a personalized schedule that one can create to make sure they don’t miss the biggest rides and attractions.

Role of Brands for Firms

The Walt Disney Company has a cooperative m ​ ultidivisional ​(M
​ -form) organizational structure that focuses on
the business type. A multidivisional or M-form organizational structure is common in diversified companies. In
this company analysis case, Disney specifically uses the cooperative M-form corporate structure. The
cooperative M-form involves related constrained diversification. For example, interdivisional benefits are a
priority in diversifying the business, and in implementing The Walt Disney Company’s generic strategy for
competitive advantage and intensive strategies for growth. Also, the company has strong centralization
involving functional groups in its corporate headquarters. Such centralization is a structural aspect that ensures
strong managerial control on diversified growth in the global mass media, entertainment, and amusement park
industries.

THE SCOPE OF BRANDING

Branding creates mental structures that help consumers organize their knowledge about products and services in
a way that clarifies their decision making and, in the process, provides value to the firm. Successful brands are
seen as genuine, real and authentic in what they sell as well as who they are.

2
 PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING_GROUP 10

● Physical Goods​: Various goods like merchandise, books, magazines, comics, toys, etc. are sold under the
brand.
● Services​: Magic Kingdom Park, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, etc. are some of the services offered
by The Walt Disney Company.

Picture: Magic Kingdom

● Store​: A lot of Disney products are sold in various stores like Target and Hallmark. There is also an online
website; www.shopdisney.com, where goods are sold.
● Persons​: The main person linked with the company is Walter Elias Disney, by whom the company is
known. It is also known by other people like Robert A. Iger, who is the executive chairman and the
chairman of the board of the Walt Disney Company.

Picture: Walter Elias Disney

● Places​: The company is headquartered in Burbank, CA and has 10 office locations across 6 countries;
United States, United Kingdom, India, China, Japan and Thailand.
● Organizations​: Some of the organizations supported by the company are; Make-A-Wish Foundation,
Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, Tiny Tots etc.
● Ideas​: Disney’s ‘princess culture’ has come under fire in recent years, with some calling out the
stereotypical and outdated tropes of its most popular female characters. In response, Disney has taken steps
to position its princesses in a more empowering light, using marketing campaigns like its
#DreamBigPrincess initiative to do so. Disney also donated $1 to the UN’s ‘Girl Up’ campaign every time
one of the images was shared on social media.

3
 PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING_GROUP 10

DEFINING BRAND EQUITY

CUSTOMER-BASED BRAND EQUITY:
Customer based approaches to brand equity view it from the perspective of the consumers and recognize that
the power of a brand lies in what customers have seen, read, heard, thought and felt about the brand over time.
A brand has positive customer-based brand equity when consumers react more favourably to a product and the
way it is marketed when the brand is identified than when it is not identified. There are 3 key ingredients of
customer based brand equity:

● Differences in consumer responses:​ Disney has a number of competitors like Viacom, 21​st Century Fox,
Sony, Time Warner etc. but consumers see Disney as a separate brand and not just any other media and
entertainment powerhouse.
● Consumers Brand Knowledge​: Disney tells stories first, develops and sells products second. The way
Disney increases brand knowledge is by associating stories to each product so that the consumer’s feel an
emotional connection.
● Perceptions, Preferences and Behaviour of Consumers:​ Consumers have a positive attitude towards the
company and this is shown in the revenue generated, which has increased over the years.

BUILDING BRAND EQUITY

The three main sets of brand equity drivers in context to Disney:

Brand Elements
Disney has chosen its brand elements extremely carefully, which have been trademarked, and helps identify and
differentiate Disney as a brand from its competitors. Disney is a strong brand and has employed multiple brand
elements to build its brand equity as much as possible.

● Brand Element Choice Criteria

○ Disney (Brand name)

The brand name itself is extremely ​memorable with the power of

recognition and recall in the minds of consumers. It is ​meaningful as its
association brings a strong association of happiness with simplicity across
the globe. It is ​likable and ​transferable with its being accepted and known to all generations and being
able to extend the name to different categories as well, such as Disneyland Resort, Disney Vacation
Club, etc. The company name is not much ​adaptable as it is the same from the 1920s with no changes.
The brand name is extremely ​protectable with the name being patent and trademark so as to not fight
any legal crisis for the brand name.

4
 PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING_GROUP 10

○ Logo

The brand is logo brings strong ​memorability and recognition. The ​meaning
being the logo of a castle brings a sudden childness inside consumers and takes
them into their dreamworld. It is the highly ​likeable and ​transferable with the
logo steering pleasant and happy emotions inside consumers and it being used
in several sub-brands. We may see slight changes in the logo for Disney’s
sub-brand due to changes surrounding events and occasions showing the
adaptabiling​. Lastly, the logo is highly ​protected​ with strong patents and copyrights issues.

○ Characters

Characters such as Mickey mouse, Cinderella, Snow White all bring about strong
associations with Disney as a brand and thus are highly ​memorable and
meaningful​. This brand element is ​likable because consumers just do not associate
it as a character but as ‘real people’ with their stories being heard from 1920’s till
today. It is ​transarable as it is used by various brands of Disney and is known
worldwide. We may have seen small improvements over time in these characters
but not much major improvements to still make it recognisable to the brand and
thus shows the ​adaptability criteria of characters as a brand element. Again, all characters created by
Disney are copyrighted and therefore are ​protected​.

○ Slogan

The slogan is instantly ​memorable and ​meaningful to the logo above because
consumers directly associate it with its characters, stories etc, all in all the
dream world created by Disney upon hearing it. It also conveys the magic that
they produce for consumers in the animation of the Disney logo in Disney’s
media products (movies, shows etc) with the sparkle and sound that emerges
around the castle and thus is deeply ​likeable by all. The slogan is however not
transferable​ to all the categories of Disney but is highly ​adaptable​ and ​protected​ by Disney.

● Developing Brand Element

However, the key here is to keep building the brand elements. Disney is always trying to be up to date with the
market with its brand element. For example, Disney is always trying to create new characters to serve new
stories and provide entertainment source to consumers and customers. It keeps updating its theme parks to
provide unique, complete and, in its own way, classy experience to consumers. Also Disney keeps reminding its
existing consumers about the brand, logo and slogan in some of the other new innovations it creates or a blast
from the past of its famous creations.

5
 PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING_GROUP 10

Designing Holistic Marketing Activities

Disney is one of the successful worldwide entertainment brands. The success of Disney is also a result of the
marketing activities undertaken by Disney to make consumers know its brand through a various range of
contacts and touchpoints. One of the major activities it was successful in was integrating its brand elements.
Disney’s major brands follow a theme that is all built around a family focus, fun, dreams, and happiness. Disney
in order to engage and communicate with consumers directly, employees from Disney were seen interacting
with consumers in theme parks and movie theatres.

Every now and then, Disney is bringing new events and way to cherish, celebrate and reminisce their brand with
#DreamBigPrincess campaign, Beauty and Beast Spotify Hub, The Jungle Book Reboot, etc. It makes sure to
send short and crisp messages in order to make the communication easy to understand and simplify the transfer
of information. The success of these marketing activities results in the effectiveness of Disney to create,
maintain and strengthen its brand associations (eg: The Jungle Book).

On the other hand, Disney’s ability to master itself in consumer personalization as stated in the role of brands
for consumers above helps it leverage as much as benefits it can and enhance its brand equity.

Also, Disney’s main website and its sub-brands websites are all up to date providing all the necessary and
specific information required to the consumers. As long as the brand experience is concerned, Disney’s strategy
is to build customer loyalty from generation to generation. Disney does it by understanding human psychology.
Essentially it is said that people are happy creatures, and what makes them happy motivates Disney as an
entertaining company to do more. By ensuring that all Disney productions are inspirational and motivational,
the brand touches the customer's hearts and captivates their imagination. ​Frozen’s e​ verlasting love between
siblings and ​Tomorrowland’s utopian world are the two latest great examples of how Disney creates such
touchpoints.

Picture: Holistic Marketing Activities.

6
 PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING_GROUP 10

Leveraging Secondary Association

Associating your brand to other information in memory that results in a meaningful message for the consumers
can be an effective way to strengthen the brand.

● Disney as a company itself has used various branding strategies explained above for branding itself.

● Disney co-branded with Youtube in 2011 to create a video series on an app named ‘Where’s my water’ with
the shorts being produced by Diseny and distributed on channels on Disney.com and Youtube. However, it
is imperative to know the success rate of co-branding because at the time of partnership Disney in itself was
not powerful enough to draw among children looking for video online while YouTube is viewed as being
cooler. Nevertheless, this step of secondary associations was seen as a step to benefit from each others
achievements which happened years later and now Disney and Youtube are strongly related to each other.
This can also be seen as an example to improve Disney’s channels of distribution.

● Endorsements: In 2010 Disney partnered with MAC to create the Venomous Villains makeup collection. It
is ​seen as ​a collaboration to celebrate the dark side in every one of us, in a glamorous sort of way. Similarly,
Disney ​characters were linked to well-regarded premium brands like Tide laundry detergent. In that case,
consumers felt the characters added little value to the product and they were annoyed that the characters
involved children in a purchasing decision that they otherwise would probably have ignored.

● Though Disney is not much seen giving sponsorship, however it has been the one to receive sponsorships
from various companies. One such example is that Chevrolet (General Motors) has been the presenting
sponsor of the Test Track thrill ride at Walt Disney World Resort.

● Awards or Reviews: One of the most profound awards that Disney earned was an Academy Award for
“Snow White and the Seven Drawfs” ​for getting recognized as a significant screen innovation which has
charmed millions and pioneered a great new entertainment field for the motion picture cartoon. ​ ​(Awards)

Picture: Award and Endorsement

7
 PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING_GROUP 10

Internal Branding
Internal branding refers to activities and processes that help inform and inspire employees about brand. It is said
that ‘the brand promise will not be delivered unless everyone in the company lives the brand. Disney conducts
brand loyalty programmes in the ​at the Disney Institute. Employees build their brand by exploring the link
between customer satisfaction and brand reputation. This integration sets Disney apart. The content of the
Brand Loyalty program is so successful that it conducts ‘Disney Style’ seminars for employees from other
companies (Kotler). By incorporating the brand vision at various employee touchpoints, Disney has over time
succeeded in inculcating the vision into its employee experience to the extent that on-brand behavior has
become instinctive and thus employees also live up to the slogan i.e ‘where dreams come true’.

MEASURING BRAND EQUITY

As per Forbers, in 2019, Disney is ranked 13​th in the World’s Most Powerful Brands with a brand value of $19
Billion. It also has consumer perception rank as 8​th​. The above statistics directly and indirectly state the brand
knowledge consumers hold. It also displays that Disney holds a strong brand equity. ​("No. 13 Disney")

MANAGING BRAND EQUITY

Reinforcing Brand Equity
Disney as a company keeps reminding the consumers about its brand elements and conveying the brand
meaning. For example, Disney keeps coming up with new stories, shows and movies of Mickey Mouse. It also
builds new theme parks at different geographical locations by introducing something innovative and special in
that theme park to make it as competitive as its other parks. It also refreshed the memory of character ‘Mugli’
by introducing the new ‘The Jungle Book’ movie. This helps Disney as a brand to enhance its brand equity by
delivering constant satisfaction and helps them to move forward.

Revitalizing Brand Equity

Revitalizing brand equity is an important concept for attracting customers by providing them superior value than
existing products. Disney’s introduction of Disney Cruise Line, helped the company to grow by entering the
cruise line market of the tourism and hospitality industries. This differentiation generic strategy developed the
competitive advantage of new business operations that use the company’s brand that is ‘Disney’ so as to create
some sort of reminder to consumers. Therefore, it helped grow Disney's presence and brand popularity in the
international market.

8
 PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING_GROUP 10

DEVISING A BRANDING STRATEGY

The following content will reflect the number and the nature of both common and distinctive brand elements of
Disney.

Brand Architecture

Picture: Brand Development

Disney has been seen using the brand extension strategy often as it introduced new products using the
established brand name, like Disney merchandise and apparel brands like Disney Stores. It has various
sub-brands like Disney Channel, Disney Nature, Disney Junior,Disney Cruise Line etc. all being the brand
extension of existing brand ‘Disney’

Picture: Brand Extension of Disney

Disney also has New Brands such as National Geographics, Marvel Studios, ABC, ESPN etc. where these
brands have different brand names for different product categories.

9
 PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING_GROUP 10

Branding Decision

As said earlier, Disney has sub-brands and thus is neither a Branded House (umbrella corporate) or House of
Brands (individual or separate family name). It actually is a hybrid having the power, credibility and strength as
of a corporate brand and the recognition, distinction and specialization that comes with owning sub-brands. The
illustration below shows how this approach is leveraged at Walt Disney. Also note how Disney is in no way
connected to some of the brands, including ABC Family and ESPN. What this creates, however, is the need for
more control, management and guidance throughout the organization. It's imperative to note that the respective
brand experiences remain consistent and relevant, so that if they are used together to endorse and reinforce each
other, their roles are clear and differentiated.

Picture: Hybrid decision of Branding

Overall, Disney has been doing tremendously good in its branding strategies. Continuous efforts like these will
help it grow and sustain its hold on being one of the world's most powerful brands.

10
 PRINCIPLE OF MARKETING_GROUP 10

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Awards, Academy. "List Of Academy Awards For Walt Disney." ​Fandom​. Web. 9 Mar. 2020 .
Kotler, Philip. Principles Of Marketing. 14th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2012. Print.
"No. 13 Disney." ​Forbes​. Web. 7 Mar. 2020 .
<https://www.forbes.com/pictures/gj45ehilh/no-13-disney/#1b1cbad528d3>.
"Disney - Leadership, History, Corporate Social Responsibility." ​The Walt Disney Company​. Web. 8 Mar. 2020
. <​https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/about/​>.
https://www.slideshare.net/AMortellier/disney-case-study-esc-clermont
https://www.slideshare.net/IvySinha/disney-marketing-strategy
https://www.marketingweek.com/marketing-the-disney-way/
https://econsultancy.com/10-examples-of-great-disney-marketing-campaigns/
https://digitalsparkmarketing.com/innovative-disney-marketing/
https://hbr.org/2002/01/selling-the-brand-inside
https://brandfinance.com/news/press-releases/disney-sparkles-as-most-valuable-media-brand-of-the-year/
https://hbr.org/2000/01/the-brand-report-card
https://brandingpower.com/brand-and-brand-architecture/
https://brandstruck.co/blog-post/brand-architecture-part-2-difference-sub-brands-endorsed-brands/
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/business/media/disney-and-youtube-make-a-video-deal.html
https://www.temptalia.com/mac-venomous-villains-collection-for-disney-information-photos/
https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2012/Jan/0106_disney.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/csylt/2018/07/12/how-disney-cast-its-spell-on-sponsorship/#16458b303dff
https://www.fishhook.us/blog/branded-house-or-house-of-brands
https://blog.frankefiorella.com/identitywise/house-of-brands-branded-house-or-somewhere-in-between
https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/about/
http://panmore.com/walt-disney-company-organizational-structure-synergistic-diversification
https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/6-ways-disney-world-delivers-top-customer-experiences/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/224397/quarterly-revenue-of-the-walt-disney-company/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/willburns/2015/06/09/disney-proves-that-profitable-marketing-is-about-brand-stor
ies/#654fdc25227b
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052115/who-are-disneys-dis-main-competitors.asp

11