Analysis Of Disney/Pixar

I am currently interning with Disney/ABC Television Group in the research department. With every internship that I have had, I make it a requirement to network as much as I can. I have always been interested in the international side of marketing. However, taking this course has opened my eyes and interests even more. I did an informational with someone from the Walt Disney Studios in the international department, in which I found interesting. I enjoy Disney movies as I am a huge fan of the company. Disney is such a marketing machine and their success wasn’t just by luck or spoon fed. In order to keep the company to continue to be successful they need to stay true to their culture as well as respect the values and norms of their overseas counterparts.
These are films that I can talk about with my family members in Colombia. As I am growing my career I am starting to learn about all the marketing implications that go on with a movie release. Disney/Pixar is known for making family-friendly movies. This is something that is very important for their culture. So when they market a movie overseas their whole marketing team has to research whom they are targeting. This will change the way they market the over all movie to even a simple movie poster. For example with Marvel’s release of Thor in Japan, they need to have a different movie poster. In Japan, women are usually the ones whom decided to the movie or which movie the family is going to watch. This tend to be because women have more money to splurge for extra activities. They tend not to learn towards action movies or male figured advertising. So, in Japan the billboards/ad that were released were with the female main character. Even though this female is not the main character of the movie. Also, in Moana the advertisement had to change to in many countries to not have Maui be shirtless. Also, in Italy the movie wasn’t called Moana but Oceania, to avoid confusion of a very famous actress called Moana from Italy. Knowing your target also helps to have somewhat of a sales forecast. For example, Black Panther is/was not expected to perform that well in Korea. This is due to the racism
She told me that it is hard due to the time difference but since Burbank is the main office, people tend to be a bit more on the Burbank schedule. She told me that after a while you get to know which countries are more responsive and how to communicated with them. For example, Europe is more strict with the work/life balance. So once they are done for the day, there is pretty much no way to reach them. Also, in August many people take a month of for vacation, so there is a 90% chance of getting an out of the office email. However, in Asia they are the complete opposite. She tends to receive emails from her Asian affiliates around the clock. Another thing that she does is facilitates movie screening or press junkets internationally. She doesn’t travel so it is a matter of making sure that the teams overseas have received the information needed and understand the guidelines. This is important since in many of these junkets a portion of never before seen clips are shown. She told me that with screenings their is a lot of legal contracts you need to fill out and they tend to take your phone away. This was not a shocker for me, as I have attended screeners before. However, in Europe there is a policy that you can not take someone's phone away. So to ensure that information does not get leaked, they worked around this law by getting these specialized