Transformation Stories: Disney
Disney+ launched Nov 2019 by the animation giant is one of the latest examples of digitally transforming a business to embrace emerging tech and create memorable customer experiences. Studying their case can serve as an inspiration to many companies.
The risk of not transforming
The digital transformation of an organization is its reinvention through the infinite and increasing possibilities technology offers. However, the key to this process is not technology or digitalization itself. When we talk about digital transformation, the key lies in transformation or reinvention.
It is a matter of rethinking the way we add value to the final user, starting with optimizing the operational processes with the use of analytics and artificial intelligence in order to create memorable experiences for those users and consistencies through all the touchpoints. It is a process that accelerated especially from the popularization of the smartphone in 2007 and that now is impacting all business sectors.
Let’s just think about what is the alternative to digital transformation for an organization. What do we stick to if we don’t reinvent ourselves? What if we kept betting on the same thing that has worked for the past 5, 10, 20 years?
The great risk of not joining this wave of change is that the new digital-native entrants generate a disruption in your own sector that dramatically reduces our market share. Porter already told us in 1979 that the threat of new entrants to an industry was a major factor. Today it is more so than ever since it is the new digital-native entrants that are generating the fastest acceleration ever seen in all sectors. This is the case of Amazon in retail, Apple in mobile phones, Uber in the taxi, AirBNB in hotels, and what may be the next biggest disruption, Tesla, in this case in the automotive sector.
Disney’s business model
How does Disney generate value? Seeing Disney as an almost perfect money-making machine is far less romantic than the organization’s classic vision of a “dream factory.” Without denying the latter, the definition is very true to reality, in my opinion. The generation of value, in this case, goes through the creation of brands and especially by a masterful exploitation of them:
- Disney builds brands around its characters and stories. Cinemas and entertainment platforms pay to stream the movies.
- The next step is to offer licensing rights that allow manufacturers to use Disney characters in consumer products.
- Creation of experiences in theme parks. In them, all the attractions and products you can buy are based on Disney brands.
- Gain greater presence through media control: Disney owns ABC television network and the cable company ESPN
- Direct access to fans through their own stores: the Disney Stores, where the brand’s products are sold.
So Disney’s business is not so much about making movies, but about creating and exploiting brands. It is a practically perfect marketing machine. Why has Disney bought the brands Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars,…? Because there is no organization that is as good as Disney at exploiting and ultimately increasing the value of a brand. It is a marketing machine perfectly designed to create value around a story. As an example, we have the following diagram from the Disney Archives, dated 1957. Let’s look at how Walt Disney designed and planned how each of the pieces of the Disney marketing machine fit together. One could almost say that Walt Disney was a true precursor to the Business Model Canvas!
Clouds in the sector
Contrary to common belief, most of Disney’s sales don’t come from movies. For years, the company’s unit generating the most revenue has been Media Networks, and specifically ESPN subscriptions.
The problem is that the Media Networks unit has been recording revenue declines for years, due in large part to a lower ESPN audience. If ESPN had 100M subscribers in 2011, six years later went down to 87M households subscribed. Additionally, ESPN’s average audience fell 7% and 11% yoy in 2015 and 2016, respectively, according to Forbes. In turn, this decline in audience is impacting ESPN’s advertising revenue.
The cause of this setback can be likely found in…
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