DISNEY STUDY CASE

Based on Disney’s business case on Marketing Management Book by Kotler Keller, in my opinion the market research they are using to develop overall products are behavioral research method and observational research that influences to their product by consumer behavior. But these research method only used if we gathered the Disney’s product as one research. In fact, Disney Business Segment and Product divided by 5 (five) segmentation, which means one product to another product not always related but still in the same brand of Disney. Therefore, to analyze market research for different product should be done with different method as well. Here are the Disney Business Segmentation and Products:

1. Walt Disney Studio , with products created films, recording labels, theatrical performance

2. Parks and Resort, with products theme parks, cruise lines, other travel-related assets

3. Disney’s consumer products with varies of branded products

4. Media network, with products television network such as ESPN, ABC, and Disney Channel

5. Interactive media with product podcast, website interactive

Research method that Disney applied related to the research approaches and gathered with my personal opinion for five products:

1. Theme park (Disneyland), for this product Disney differentiate it’s customer in terms of (1) their needs and (2) their value to the company by doing behavioral research. Behavioral research is method that used by skimming data of customer’s purchase behavior such as customer database, store scanning data, etc. Since the first established, Disneyland only serve customer with children’s attraction, but after doing behavioral research that parent also involve in Disneyland’s attraction, either accompany their child or satisfy themselves in riding attraction. Therefore, after doing several behavioral research, they start provide attraction for adults. For this action, they sales growth increase every year.

When they start expansion by build international themepark outside America, they are doing ethnographic research to analyze how people live in their country, is there any themepark that satisfiying as Disneyland did or not, etc. Themepark is kind of entertainment that become people’s needs. It is important to do ethnographic research to gain information about prospect customer’s interest. They also using some qualitative measures to make sure they are explore the right number of customer with positive response of total citizen, total country’s visitors per year, moreover the qualitative measures helps to explore customers’ brand and product perception. Thus because they did such a good research, it’s generate successful themepark all over the world. As an example, by total people visitors and citizen ‘a’ country in a total of 100, with doing some qualitative measure with possibility, customers who wants to enjoy themepark is about 80 out of 100 with price $100 (80 x $100 = 8000). Assuming that parks will open every day (365 days) per year, with investment about $800,000, thus it will be break even for about 10 years. It is just an example with created numbers, but in fact the Disney should use proper data to meet this possibility of forecasting sales.

2. Walt Disney Studio – Created Film, as we all know from its founding in 1923 Disney always serves quality entertainment. It became the first entertainment that produce cartoon movie with character ever, Mickey Mouse. It was not colorful as now on. It used to be just black and white cartoon. But then, by the time goes and Disney do several experimental research to do innovation for their product, they create colorful cartoon movie which become trend in our lives now. In such doing an experimental research, Disney might giving two different situation to the customer, one is the black and white movie, the other one is cartoon with colour with the result the colorful one is attracting customer more with effect the black and whites no more watched by the customers. Nowadays, many film has been created by Disney, as they following market’s trend. Disney also using survey research with qualitative measures to determine what kind of movie customer’s looking for, what kind of story they are willing to watch, thus if it shows in the cinemas later, it will generate profit. For instance, price for cinemas for about $25, about 5 out of 10 customer with family type willing to watching cartoon animated in the cinemas, even 6 of them willing to pay at $15. Thus a price of $15 will generate less revenue (6 x $15 = $90) while $25 can produce (5 x $25 = $125). Assuming the film is available at cinema for 1 month (30 days), spread into 30 countries all over the world, which is all countries can generate more than 2 Million customers, so Disney can collect $50,000,000 (2,000,000 x $25). With investment for about $600,000, it would take less than a year break even.

3. Disney’s Consumer Product is one of Disney’s best product. Every visitor who visit themepark, resort, or even America’s souvenir shop looking for Disney product. In my opinion, it is not about the product, but it is about the brand. Everyone loves Disney. But selling consumer product could increase company’s revenue continuously. Hence, in order to create Disney’s Consumer Product, they need to do observational research including survey research. They have to do those research to figure out customer’s preferences because at the end the one who will buy the product is customer. The survey could be done by doing customer survey in Disneyland by interview using questionnaire to knowing customer’s satisfaction. This will help them to innovate product based on customer’s mind. Observational research determined what kind of product customer mostly consumed, then Disney could applied to create and innovate branded product. Qualitative measure needed to determined customers’ preferences compare from several consumer products, which one is suit best to generate more profit and which one is don’t by calculate it’s investment and possibility of buyers from each product.

4. Disney’s Product Television Network, for this product consist of ESPN, ABC, and Disney Channel, Disney should be doing focus group research and survey research. In focus group research, Disney select researcher carefully based on the information they needed from, for instance for Disney Channel they need to observe opinion and response from focus group they are using to gathered customer’s preference for the product. If the response is good, they should continue implemented the product. As we are aware, the product (example: Disney Channel) is success among the children also parenthood community, even it is success all over the country around the world. Product Television Network also support Disney in contributing revenue from its sales. But for this product they might also need to do survey research to develop and make innovation for the product thus customer will always loyal to the product television network. Disney might need some information about television channel’s to do qualitative measure to make sure that their choice to create product television network will generate profit and how many years they need to break even the investment they put.

5. Interactive Media, This is such a disney key point product. This product is truly market’s trend product from Disney. Example of this product is podcast. Only customer with technology educated know about it. But since technology development increase rapidly, this is an opportunities for Disney to develop this product. Before lauch this product they might have some research to support the sales growth of this product. Since this product related to other parties, such as media television or apple store, they have to do ethnographic research, for instance business woman with family might not having time to accompany children to watch their favorite movie while she’s working. Thus based on her way in how to live and work, Disney could be take this opportunity to create, develop and implemented the product. Then at the end this product could help someone’s family become intim. Survey research might also use to decide which media they should partnering based on customer’s brand preferences (example: apple or android). This might take a qualitative research that will enable to divine how many percent Disney could collect profit with partnership with apple, how many percent Disney will generate from Android, how long the break even, what promotional method they should use to attract more customer, etc. Each possibility could be produced by doing the right survey that consist of closed-end questionnaire and open-end questionnaire. For example, people who use apple is 100 person, people who use android is 70 person, by looking this data we will know that is better to use apple as our partnership rather than android, but in the future if they want to expand, they might take android as well for their target partnership to generate more profit.

In the future Disney should always be innovated for each product, thus Disney should always be prepare with market research before implemented an innovation. Before interact with market research, they need to figure out what is they goal for each product. Market research method is always become a key point of product’s development or created new product, but we should use some marketing tools as well to support the developing process.