Disney and Marketing: Normal Marketing Strategies

 Normal Marketing Strategies

Merchandise

The many (many) theme park stores that sell Disney merchandise had “Jungle Book” sections. 

Synergy

When two companies of almost no relation work together to help market each others product. Examples of this for Disney are:

Kenzo: The fashion retailer created a limited-edition line of clothing inspired by the movie and its classic characters. https://www.kenzo.com/en/thejunglebook 

Airbnb: Ran a promotion offering $100 off treehouses listed on the service that was supported by a co-branded TV spot including footage from the movie.

Cross Media Convergence

This strategy of cross-media convergence has become a basis for the Walt Disney Company’s rapid growth. Some examples include re-releasing on DVD but through tie ins with other companies – McDonalds had Jungle Book 2 Happy Meals, for example, which in turn promoted the first film. Also Disney licensed the characters for use by other companies, such as Virgin who developed a Jungle Book video game for Sega, Gameboy and PC in the early 1990s. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtIvuHMekXE - an advert showing CMC and synergy with Mc Donald's and the Jungle Book 2.

Posters

A method used by all film companies including Disney for marketing is of course movie posters.









Pull Marketing

Stars are another way to make adults pay attention. To elevate “The Jungle Book” in the minds of grown-ups, Disney in March circulated dramatic photographs that paired voice actors with their onscreen characters — Idris Elba with the tiger Shere Khan, Ben Kingsley with the panther Bagheera, Lupita Nyong’o with the wolf Raksha.

Marketing Via Technology

When animals talk in a movie, unless it’s a comedy, older moviegoers tend to skip it. Most of Mr. Favreau’s animals are not cartoonish and cuddly (not by a long shot), but Disney could not rely on trailers and TV spots to convey that message.

So Disney used bloggers and entertainment news sites to hammer home a point: Favreau used sophisticated filmmaking techniques to create the animal characters.

Disney TV Use and Theme Parks

Various corners of the Disney empire pitched in to promote “The Jungle Book.” A New Year’s Day stunt on the Disney Channel, for instance, was used to portray the film as one of the year’s first blockbuster offerings for families and children.

But the synergistic heavy lifting was done by Disney theme parks. During the jam-packed spring break weeks, park theaters in Florida and California offered sneak-peek footage of the movie, with Jon Favreau often providing introductions to the movie. 

Social Media

Apart from traditional marketing devices (theatrical trailers and print-based posters) Disney uploaded an interactive movie poster on Snapchat and users could apply a framed ‘Jungle Book’ lens, which turned their faces into the snake, Kaa.

The Instagram feed, twitter and Facebook feeds were all instrumental in drumming up millennial support. 

Intertextuality

An example of intertextuality, other media works are being referenced within Jungle Book 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=100&v=m125-V2uCBw