Disney consumer products: Marketing Nutrition to Children Harvard Business Review Case

2. WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN THOUGHT OF
DISNEY WORLD’S FOOD
But, are these healthy for children?

3. SOME TROUBLING FACTS AND
FIGURES
In 2004,
• America: 5-9 years children: 30% overweight, 14% obese
• Europe: 5-9 years children: more than 10% obese

4. REASONS
• Overeating
• Unhealthy eating
• Lack of exercise

5. SITUATUION OF DISNEY
• Disney’s target segment is children.
• It not only had such unhealthy food at their resorts,
but also had alliance with brands like McDonalds.
• So Disney had to establish credibility when it comes
to nutrition with the government, parents and
nutritionists.

6. WHAT DID DISNEY’S DISNEY
CONSUMER PRODUCTS(DCP) DECIDE
TO DO
• Use this opportunity to reconsider its entire range of food
products- introducing new product lines to reduce the gap (line
filling).
• Balance their portfolio.
• Realize its role in helping solve this obesity problem in
children, i.e. use its brand image.

8. QUESTIONS
• How to position itself as a nutritious valuing brand
• How to use the brand name to bring about the change
• How to change its current product mix for the purpose
• What to do internally
• Finally how to implement this in the market

9. HYPOTHESIS
• Keep its image as fun and tasty for the children to accept the
change
• Try to change the existing product lines to fit the nutrition criteria
• Fill the gap where this is lacking and remove the ones where no
change can be made to improve it
• Market it using some big, established brand so that it effects large
part of the segment.
• The image of that brand should be able to complement and
supplement the target and purpose of these changes.
• Use appropriate models for it so that they can monitor the new
changes and respond to the feedback effectively

10. To build DCP into global consumer product
company

11. • To explore other marketing models other than the old licensing model
• Continued the traditional licensing model where the licensee does
everything, from innovation to manufacturing to marketing.
• Next, tried the other model- the sourcing model
• Third model- DTR Distribution model
• Experimenting with these later helped them easily implement them with the
new nutritious product lines.

12. • How to satisfy children and their parents both?
• How to do line filling?
• The nutritious angle:
– Which products lines are to be retained
– which are to be reformed
– what new product lines are to be created with this quality.

14. From survey:
• Line filling the gap between
parents’ and children's’ choices.
• Children influence the purchasing
decision, so make position it as
“FUN”.
• Parents are already loyal to
Disney and trust it.
• Advertising has a huge impact on
children's decisions.
LINE FILLING

15. • The nutrition model
– 1800 calorie diet
• 85% main meal, side dish snack or beverage and 15% treats
• Based on this evaluating its existing products.

16. • Decided which type of product lines to create , i.e. which gap
to fill
• Decided the criteria, in this case the nutritional requirements.
• Decided which products to retain, which to reform and which
to cast off.
• Next, we use the previous models to introduce these
changes/new things in the market.

17. IMAGINATION FARMS
• Used the traditional licensing method
• Used different product strategy to differentiate their
products and attract children by making them
participate in it actively.
• Created value added products- used ingredient
emphasizing on the packaging for the parents.

18. DISNEY AND KROGER
• Used the DTR model in this case.
• Since these are food products, a huge
market share had to be target, hence
hose Kroger.
• Pricing strategy: price at a discount to
the national brands to start with.

19. PROOF AND ACTION
• There are proofs for each of the nutritional facts used, some of
them provided by the government.
• Filling the gap is by the survey
• This satisfies everyone, children to parents
• Changing the existing things to fit the criteria helps that
children doesn’t find it completely new and unknown. Proof of
it got when children actively bought fruits when associated
with their favorite characters.
• Using the existing giants like Imagination Farms helped with
the parents where they easily appreciated the changes and saw
the efforts made.

20. ALTERNATIVES
• Disney does on its own without licensing by using its own
brand name. This wouldn’t favor much because if it did this it
wouldn’t be able to change its image as the one to support
nutrition. Associating with sources like Imagination Farms
helped.
• Do not expand its market portfolio- would’ve left Disney with
just few options for a change to nutrition and more loss too.

21. DISNEY’S IMAGE NOW WITH
RESPECT TO NUTRITION

22. RECAP
• The maelstrom Disney was caught in (Situation)
• The things it decided to do
• The questions it had to answer first
• The hypothetical image it built initially
• Its problems and the actions taken for it
• The weaker alternatives

23. DISCLAIMER
Created by Nitya Joshi, BITS-Pilani,
Hyderabad, during a marketing internship
under Professor Sameer Mathur, IIM Lucknow