A presentation on the financial and brand strategy of creating an app for Pixar. Created by Lisa D'Mello, Jacquelyn DiNick, Brittney Johns and Vanessa Teran Iturralde

1. Pixar Plus: An App
Lisa D’Mello, Jacquelyn DiNick, Brittney
Johns, Vanessa Teran Iturralde

2. Background
1986: Apple’s Steve Jobs bought the Lucasfilm computer graphics division for $5 million
Pixar began with animated shorts / increasingly complex animation over the years
Animators overcame lighting, other scenery challenges
Nighttime scenes were uncommon in digital animated films, but Pixar conquered the technological
challenges
Feature Films
Toy Story (1995)
Pixar’s first animated feature-length film
Highest grossing film of the year, making $362 million worldwide
Received 3 Academy Award nominations
Every film thereafter saw major success
Toy Story 3 (2010) highest-grossing animated movie
Other films received Oscars or Oscar level nominations

3. Why Do We Care?
Pixar is a household name
Known for graphics and imagery; better yet, compelling stories
Stories are built around the same theme of self-improvement
The formula: With the help of friend or family, a character ventures out
into the real world and learns to appreciate his or her friends and
family
Tavis Smiley interviews John Lasseter for PBS (2007)
“It’s gotta be about the growth of the main character and how he
changes.”

4. Pitch: Pixar Plus
Behind the scenes
Watch how animators use state of the art computer technology to bring characters and worlds
to life
Meet the voice talent and learn how they got into character
Hear a special word from John Lasseter, one of the fathers of Pixar
View never before seen footage that made the cutting room floor, including deleted scenes and
alternate endings
A First Look gives fans a glimpse of up and coming feature length films
Be the first to view teaser trailers for movies like Finding Dory (2016) and Toy Story 4 (2017)
Store
Users can connect to the iTunes store to purchase and download films straight from Pixar’s
page
Theatrical shorts, as well as animated shorts from Pixar’s early years to present-day, will be
available to purchase and download
An in-site store will offer movie-themed merchandise

5. Pitch: Pixar Plus
Fan interaction
Join in the conversation by posting to message boards
Compete to win special prizes
Teaming up with ACM’s SIGGRAPH
Winners will receive tickets to the annual SIGGRAPH conference, movie tickets, iTunes store
discounts and small merchandise
Personalize your photos
Allow Pixar Plus access to your mobile device’s camera
You can choose add-ons such as backgrounds and stickers, and send them digitally

6. Pitch: Pixar Plus
Pixar Plus
Lite Version $6.99
Store Store
Theatrical/Teaser Trailers Theatrical/Teaser Trailers
Trivia Trivia
Competitions And Prizes
Never Before Seen Footage
Behind The Scenes
First Look
Animated Shorts

7. Pixar Plus Business Model
Cost of Developing an App:
Planning and R&D- Pixar will have to plan the app, its function, its
design and how it will benefit the company.
Developing for iOS- - Apps on different devices have their own
operating systems and for the most part, different native SDKs
(software Development Kits) and programming languages.
People on The Team- Pixar will need a highly skilled team of software
engineers and architects to develop their app and they will have to
cover all grounds of the development phase
Accounting and Legal- Pixar needs to make sure that they are not
infringing on any copyrights with music, artists etc. when they are
allowing people to buy and stream movies on their app.
Marketing and Miscellaneous Costs

8. Monetizing The App
Free App
The reason that a free version was included was because free apps are downloaded 10x as much as apps that you
have to pay for.
The free app portion that will be available to all has limited features that give the audience a taste of our app.
There are buying cues throughout the app
As a free user you can also watch the trailers to upcoming movies. These trailers will help promote the movies
through the app and will hopefully translate to increased ticket sales
Pixar Plus
The app will cost a one time fee of $6.99
When you download the premium version of the app you get the special behind the scenes and making of the
movies. You will get sneak peaks at movie trailers before they are available to the public and you will be able to
access teasers and clips from the films.
The targeted audiences here are the die-hard fans and animators that enjoy watching how the movie was made and
what the process was in creating characters and animation decisions.

9. Pixar Financials
Pixar has been a financially successful company from its
first film Toy Story that released in 1995 and made
over $350 million dollars worldwide
Pixar has been a financially successful company from its
first film Toy Story that released in 1995 and made
over $350 million dollars worldwide
Pixar movies have been financially lucrative in franchising
its product because it has branded its movies in such
a way that they always evoke a sense of nostalgia
amongst its audiences

11. Pixar Financials Continued..

12. Demographics
“To bring the kid out of adults”
Pixar’s philosophy is to
market towards children
and adults.
Pixar wants their audience to
age along with the film.
They are in a unique position
because they can market
and cater to both without
sacrificing content and
creativity.

13. Demographics (cont.)
Families
Children (bet. 3-10 years old)
specifically boys
Millennials
older teenagers
college students
young adults

14. Pixar Plus: Target Market
The app will represent the brand’s essence as a company who offers entertainment for the whole
family.
A key market will be children and preteens, ages 4 to 15, who use mobile devices to play games and
stream videos.
Also designed to attract a market niche consisting of Pixar’s biggest fans: people who love and enjoy
animation and are attracted to all things Pixar (merchandise, news, films and apps).
The kids app market is a blooming industry. Tablets are used by parents and schools to incentivize
children’s development and apps are regarded as both educational tools and a source of
entertainment.

15. Pixar in Social Media
Pixar already has a strong social media presence, independent from the Disney brand. An app would
be an organic way to capitalize on this asset and also attract new fans and followers.

16. Kids and Mobile Devices
The majority of kids living in the US own a personal mobile device (cellphone or tablet) by the time
they are 12 years old.
56% of children ages 8 to 12 own a cellphone.
70% of children under 12, who live in a tablet-owning household, use the tablet device in a weekly
basis.
77% of them use the device to download games, while 56% use them to engage in educational
apps.
In 2014, the most popular kids apps were not developed by big media companies but by startups or
companies that dedicate themselves exclusively to app development: Angry Birds, Trucks HD,
Toca Hair Salon.
Most popular features in kids app include games; drawing and coloring; photo editing and
manipulation, video streaming.

17. Disney Apps
Disney offers more than 50 apps for download on iTunes and Google Play, from games based on
movie characters to an online movie store (Disney Anywhere) and tour guides to its theme
parks.
Some of the apps are based on Pixar Movies, like “Numbers with Nemo” and “Toy Story: Story
Theater” but there is not an app dedicated exclusively to Pixar products and content.