Marketing/ Circulation

Essay on Marketing/Circulation

Walt Disney are part of the big six and are a huge multi-national mass media. They are hugely known around the world. They are one of the largest conglomerates in the world. They have many relationships with Walmart and McDonalds which uses synergy to further both of the company’s needs. McDonalds have marketed Disney through their happy meals especially kids. Disney have very large stakes in Hulu, and own the film rights towards Marvel, Pixar and Lucas film, with the latter being purchased from George Lucas in a multibillion dollar transaction. Disney usually make around 2/3 Marvel films a year, 1 or 2 pixar films and then 1 or 2 live animation remakes. These are carefully timed for their target audience, to bring in the most revenue and the biggest interest. I.e. Pixar films typically happen during the holidays, as the kids are able to view them.

They attracted an older audience by making the film very much action filled and thriller like, creating a new sense of adventure and fright among many audiences. Disney also used Kenzo to market it as they are a huge well known company which many people would recognise. The film also appeals to children because it plays on the old one A LOT bringing back childhood memories. By adapting the film to the older audience, for example, adding more scenery which appeals to older audience members, the film can be marketed to a wider audience. Disney were also able to make use of ‘Star Appeal’ to a much greater extent as popular actors and cast members are employed to make audiences. In the modern day, the original film is being marketed to older audiences through the Disney Vault system, which ‘removes’ Disney films from retail outlets until certain times of the year, where it is re-released as an ‘enhanced’ edition for a much higher price.
The original trailer is upbeat and light hearted with a musical aspect that makes you want to sing along. This has been done to appeal to younger audiences. The new trailer has a more sinister and darker feel to it. By making a live action film the animals appear to be real adding a danger aspect to it. This has been done in order to appeal to not only the younger generations but the older generation who watched the original.

In 1967, Disney’s music and songs were written for the film in the early stages of creating the film. This suggests that there was huge importance placed on the music considering the music is what makes the film so memorable.
In the 2016 live-action remake, there is a huge importance placed on the star-studded cast, as they were one of the main aspects focused on throughout the marketing. All of the posters of the characters had their names like Scarlett Johanneson.
The 1967 poster appears a lot brighter and colourful because their attention was drawn towards a younger target audience. In the 2016 poster, the characters all appear more serious and the colours are darker and there are more shadows.  Both posters seem to give us an insight as to what the character’s personalities are. We can also see the relationships between each character on both posters and we can see which characters are the ones which might not have such a liking for Mowgli.
The Disney vault is where movies are placed, resulting in them being no longer distributed or on sale. This means that people can no longer go into a shop and buy them, until after a few years or more when Disney decide to re-release them. The “Vault” is the place where these movies are kept safe and store for future uses and releases if necessary.
The film was released on BHS in 1999 due to DVD not being a thing back then and it was one of the first films released on DVD. Disney have had many re-releases and various successes,
This is because they found a formula that worked and played on it making films that they knew were safe and people would go watch which would without much effort make them a lot of money in a short space of time.

To conclude, marketing has obviously changed. You could argue that with its licensing deals with Kenzo and its focus on aggressively targeting a secondary audience to build profits on the back of a family audience who always turn out for Disney films you could argue that Disney have grown smarter and more precise with their planning, however we must also not forget that there are still lots of similarities between the two eras, for example the use of stars and red carpet premieres to promote a film remains in place as does the creation of character posters and trailers as the fundamental basics of  Disney marketing so to me what is  forgotten is that Disney as a conglomerate have always been a master at marketing, it is why they are the number one entertainment conglomerate in the world and  yes some of the practices have changed but the whole reason why there was new version of The Jungle Book in the first place was because of the success of the first film, a success driven by an effective marketing campaign.