The Disney Brand

Let's talk about Disney.

According to Young & Rubicam's measurements of key brand dimensions (differentiation, relevance, esteem and knowledge), Disney is a super brand. What's a super brand? It's a brand that scores over 80% on each dimension. In Disney's case, they actually scored over 90% on each dimension.

Here's a question for you: What can a brand be worth? According to the Business Week 2002 Interbrand study of brand values, over 50% of Walt Disney Company's value was attributable to the Disney brand. The Disney brand itself was valued at $29 billion dollars.

Disney's brand portfolio includes the corporate brand, master brands like ESPN and ABC, product brands like Disneyland and Walt Disney Pictures and property like The Lion King.

Here are two great points from the book:

1) One characteristic of good extensions is that the parent brand brings something to the party.
2) An extension should also support and enhance the parent brand.

Disney illustrates the above perfectly. The Disney brand brings expectations of magical family entertainment to each extension. Like the book says, if you had never been on a Disney cruise, wouldn't you immediately have an idea of what to expect? Of course. At the same time, Disney's extensions have been wildly successful at supporting and enhancing the Disney brand. Aaker's suggests that Disneyland Park has had more brand impact than nearly any brand building initiative in business history. It's easy to see where he's coming from given that Disneyland took magical family entertainment to a whole new level. Disneyland lets the audience interact and experience Mickey Mouse, Snow White and Fantasia in person. These experiences at Disneyland are the Disney brand.

Lastly for today, I want to discuss something that I should have discussed yesterday. We know a portfolio is a collection of assets. But what's the significant of the portfolio in brand strategy? The whole idea about approaching brand strategy from a portfolio perspective comes down the belief that the value derived from the collection of brands is greater than the sum of the individual brands.