2. Harry Dolman - Executive Vice President of DCP’s food, health
and beauty group
Embola Ndi – Vice President of Disney’s product development
category
Andy Mooney – President of Disney Consumer Products
3. Disney found itself in the middle of a maelstrom and the food
treats it encourages were considered as one of the
contributing factors to the growing obesity epidemic in 2004.
Managers at DCP saw the controversy as an opportunity to
reconsider its entire range of food products.
Disney desired to provide leadership for the rest of the food
industry and use its brand equity to reach out to children with
its nutritious products.
4. To asses the viability of Disney’s entry into the food business.
To get an idea about how much loss the firm will hit in the short
term because of this decision
To assess the variety of risks which the firm will be facing due to
the strategy it is about to implement
6. DCP conducted a research to size the food business opportunity
and to discover if Disney’s brand equity would transfer to a line
of children’s food products
Group sessions and shopping trips with mothers of children
aged between 2 to 13 years were the basis for the research.
DCP discovered that there was a gap between the foods
children requested and the foods their mothers were willing to
buy for them.
As a result, DCP understood the importance and value of
balancing their portfolio.
7. Disney had to phase out approximately a quarter of its products which would
result in a considerable loss and Disney was aware of this.
8. Disney’s model assumed a daily 1800-calorie diet with each
child consuming three meals, two snacks, one beverage and
one treat.
Thus Disney decided to balance its portfolio such that 85% of its
products could be classified as main meal, side dish, snack or
beverage and only 15% could be categorized as treats.
9. Disney licensed its characters to Imagination farms, a national
fresh produce marketing company.
To differentiate certain commodities such as peaches and
apples, PLU stickers were adorned with Disney characters. This
had a very positive feedback from the consumers.
10. 2003 2004 2005
Walt Disney
Company
27061 30752 31944
Disney
Consumer
Products (%
of company
revenue)
8.66% 8.17% 6.66%
DCP, Food
and Grocery
only (% of
company
revenue)
0.2% 0.17% 0.22%
11. Character Company Percent share
Mickey Mouse Disney 23.02%
Winnie the Pooh Disney 22.22%
Frodo Baggins Tolkien
Enterprises
11.51%
Harry Potter JK Rowling 11.11%
Nemo Disney 7.94%
Yu- Gi-Oh! Warner Bros. 6.35%
SpongeBob
SquarePants
Nickelodeon 5.95%
Spiderman Marvel
Entertainment
5.16%
13. Pricing and value: The shift from the standard premium pricing
of Disney to lower pricing of its food products was a marketing
challenge for DCP.
Legacy: The change in brand positioning from the earlier fun
and magic concept to the new ‘Better for you’ products
created some uncertainty among the DCP managers.
Competition: DCP had competitors in marketing of healthy
food products using fictional characters from Nickelodeon,
Sesame Workshop and Warner Bros.
14. In spite of all the risks, DCP focused on developing ‘Better for
you’ products and how they are going to get there.
The market share of their fictional characters were more than
50% percent and the Disney characters were more popular
than any other.
The strong brand equity and the research conducted helped
Disney in strategizing for their ‘Better for you’ products.
Disney were aware that they will take a multi-million dollar hit
temporarily due to the products phased out but were
confident that the future will be bright.
15. Created by Arun M, IIT Madras, during a marketing internship
with Prof. Sameer Mathur, IIM Lucknow.
