Don’t Sell Your Products, Sell Your Stories

Walt Disney’s genius was not animation or theme park design, but in truly understanding the human heart

Marketing and branding is ultimately about wooing and winning someone’s heart

DISNEY OVERVIEW

BRAND IDENTITY

● YOUTHFUL● JOYFUL● MAGICAL● FAMILY

ORIENTED● TRUST

TARGET MARKET

Families with younger children

DISNEY’s MARKETING TOOLS

1)Advertising through television, radio, movies and print.

2)Personality of the brand-happy, lighthearted and magical

3)Having the ability to transport children and adults to a state of happiness and

magic

4)Disney prides themselves on this image.

DISNEY LEGACY

1)Larger Rides

2)Appeal to older

audience

3)Located on the other

side of the disney world

NEW ADVERTISING STRATEGIES

1)Television commercials 2)Youtube Advertisements 3)Youtube Advertisements

4)Print Advertisements 5)Interactive website 6)Catalogs and Emails to customers

“Building a community, not just shilling a product”

Adventurous, Personal, Endorsements and Humour Appeal

FREAKISHLY LOYAL CUSTOMERS1)All theming, all the time

Disney’s theming is more than a few cartoon faces on side of rides. Its immersive, complete and, in its own cheesier-than-France way, kind of classy.

2)IMMERSION

Fans keep coming because

there is always more to see.

Disney’s moto isn’t “lots of

rides”, it is

“The Happiest Place on

Earth”

3)Everyone’s a princess

Cast members give children

badges and balloons at random;

princesses stop to greet little

girls dressed in princess gear;

guests are allowed to “Captain”

the jungle cruise and Mark

Twain riverboat,

4)Mining the Mythos

Disneyland’s greatest product is its

own mythology. The running of

the park maybe too tawdry for the

public eye, but the story of the

park is trumpeted everywhere.

THE FOUR P’s

Products-Wide variety of products from tangible goods at stores to experience at

their theme parks.

The use of wide variety of characters across their products solidifies their

customer-brand relationship.

2)Pricing

Disney keeps its prices just

on the border of affordable.

The strategy is to make the

price just high enough to

ensure that each experience

is unique since it is

infrequent.

3)Place/Distribution

Disney distributes its products

in areas with high amount of

people in order to make their

brand more familiar and

available to consumers. Theme

parks located in well known

areas like Florida, California,

Paris and Tokyo.

4)Promotion

Disney succeed in this area

especially in low peaks of the

year. Promotion such as low

price rooms, free or reduced

tickets and items are highly

utilized strategies of disney.

“I’m a big believer in respect for heritage, but I’m also a big believer in the need to innovate and the need to balance that respect for heritage with a need to be relevant”

REFERENCES

1)Marketing Management-A South Asian Perspective by Kotler et al

2)Kissmetrics blog by D Bnonn Tennant

3)Disney marketing analyses by Ashley Lopez

SUMMARYThe Reverse Content Marketing

● Disney tells stories first, develops and sells products second.

● Creates freakishly loyal customers.

● Exceptional social media connect.

● The special 4P’s

DISCLAIMERCreated by Abhimanyu Singh, ISM Dhanbad under a marketing internship by

Prof. Sameer Mathur