Disney Finally, Maybe, Embraces Prime Opportunity To Build Disney+ Audiences
Well, that took long enough. Reports are surfacing that Disney is investigating how it can create an Amazon Prime-style membership program giving customers benefits beyond the opportunity to pay 43% more for a streaming service they’ve already subscribed to.
The Wall Street Journal said Disney is looking to package its formidable offerings in streaming, parks, and merchandise in some manner that can further drive loyalty and reduce churn. It’s the most obvious idea in Mouseland since Walt started dreaming about a theme park back in the early 1950s while riding his model train around his Burbank backyard.
That we’re now almost at the third anniversary of the launch of flagship streaming service Disney+, alongside a company history of interweaving its franchises across a bewildering array of products, experiences and services, just begs one question: What took so damned long?
Pandemic. Okay, fair. Disney’s parks, cruise lines, and resorts around the planet shuddered to a halt for many months, and theatrical is still a mess. They. Got. Crushed.
Also, leadership transition. Semi-fair. Yes, Bob Chapek took over for Bob Iger as CEO about a minute and a half before the pandemic blitzed the globe, and in particular Disney’s moneymakers. Chapek indeed had a few issues to deal with first.
But pre-CEO Chapek was running the parks and consumer products, and before that, home entertainment. If anyone should have been thinking for years about tying all this together in some fashion, it was Chapek, who talked in May about Disney’s “unique synergy machine, or franchise flywheel.” But these things apparently take time.
The Journal suggests Disney was inspired by the sticky power of Amazon Prime, which now has something like 150 million subscribers taking advantage of benefits like grocery discounts, free shipping, music, books, games, and Prime Video, which is about to consume the streaming world’s attention with its $715 million (not a typo) Lord of the Rings prequel, The Rings of Power.
Disney is “in the early stages” of something a little less shipping-related, of course, but it would bring together key parts of the far-flung Mickey Empire, including possible exclusive merchandise tie-ins (one example, a “darksaber” toy like that in the Star Wars streaming series The Mandalorian).
CNBC’s Julia Boorstin said Thursday that other opportunities being considered include “experiences, discounts, and deals,” and especially, more personalization to specific fans’ interests.
The company already has the D23 Official Fan Club, which costs up to $129.99 (same as Prime) for access to exclusive events and merchandise. When Disney unveiled Disney+ at the annual D23 event almost exactly three years ago, the company gave eager members a discounted three-year subscription to Disney+. Some 10 million people signed up. The new program is for less hard-core, “more casual” fans, the Journal said.
One early initiative would let Disney+ subscribers “buy merchandise such as T-shirts, themed accessories and children’s costumes associated with some of its shows by scanning a QR code on the service that links to the Shop Disney website.” Very exciting for Little Mermaid shoppers at Halloween.
The company expects any new subscription program would generate more in revenue and enhanced sales than any discounts and deals might cost.
Just as importantly, it’s expected to generate a Sleeping Beauty Castle-sized pile of customer data about the people who care most about Disney brands. Employed correctly, that might be massively useful in helping Disney extract even more value from its many brand fans.
It might even be an opportunity for Disney to explore some of the promise of NFTs as more than crummy eight-bit images of bored primates. Issue a token that connects each fan with exclusive events, merchandise, discount movie and PVOD tickets, online experiences, Metaverse/VR goods, and much else. Yes, I’m dreaming.
Also on the plate: adding an e-commerce feature to Disney+. Again, seems obvious, given the company’s long history of extracting revenue. And yet, here we are, in the public Talking-About-It stage.
Disney, which lost $1.1 billion last quarter on its streaming operations, is looking for ways to make those more lucrative (the company predicts break-even will arrive in two short years) and less vulnerable to the subscriber churn hitting the industry.
Meanwhile, Walmart just beefed up its subscription shopping/shipping service, Walmart+, by adding free access to streaming service Paramount+.
The value-conscious Walmart didn’t increase prices in adding the network to its $98-a-year service. At least someone seems to be aware both steep inflation and an incipient recession may be affecting consumer spending decisions.