Marvel Enterprises

Marketing system 8050 react Enterprises, Inc. Case Writing by Xiaodan Dong February, 2008 wonder Enterprises, Inc. (b) why was wonders turnaround so masteryful? Would you characterize that success as a fluke? Or do you view it as sustainable? Why? How? Marvels success is not a fluke because its business enterprise model is sustainable. Marvels new strategy m maventized the content library by licensing characters for use with media products. During an era in which upsurge media is precise all- authorized(prenominal) in peoples life, only one media tool, publishing, is not strong enough to expand Marvels allure to consumers.Comic books piece of ass target a in truth limited market, broadly speaking placid of male teenagers and young adults from 13 to 23 years old. It is very unenviable to expand this traditional market. After many years of development, this market has mature and is very stable. Meanwhile, people make water been more exposed to movies, televisions, an d video games, which more effectively influence peoples consumption behavior than do comic books. All these media modes argon able to r individually more consumer segments than traditional comic-book publishing.Marvels possible to develop increased dramatically when its market spread out to broadcast media. Other consumer products, such as monkeys, worked in conjunction with media products, these both kinds of products reinforced each separate. Marvels market expansion certain in both a comprehensive and intensifier manner. Marvel stress long-term value in its new management strategy. They planed move for each of their characters. For example, Spider-Mans career over the next five years is to have devil more movies, DVDs, toys, a video game, and a promotion with Burger King.The intensive career plan extend characters life and sewer have each character penetrate into peoples lives by media on a long term basis. The third main strategical dimension is to ensure the tone of the content which featured Marvel characters. mankind and consistency in characters and stories mean everything for Marvel. Before Marvels turnaround, the meek publishing market share was mostly due to a wishing of quality control. When efforts were put into improving creativity and fine artwork, the publishing business was rejuvenated and the market share increased.The publishing business provides the primary support for both licensing and toys. Marvels success will sustain, because the products lives are extended with well-planed career, and the market is expanded with thriving licensing and toy businesses. Investment in quality can enhance the products competitive ability in terms of both product life and market expansion. Great say-so exists in each aspect of Marvels market. (c) How important are each of Marvels three divisions Comic books, toys, and licensing to its past and incoming performance? The comic book business was Marvels meat in the past and earned almost all revenue.Comic books were so important for Marvel that its market share determined if Marvel would live or die. That is why Marvel went bankrupt in the mid-1990s, when mismanagement caused a spacious drop in comic-book sales. After Marvel turned around, comic-book publishing was important as a primary business, but not a pump business. Since 1997, Marvels financial performance in comic-book industry has been very stable and the annual sales totaled around 300 one million million million every year. While comic book revenue should continue to be stable, its division will decrease in the future as Marvels other businesses grow.Licensing was only a small part of Marvels overall revenue in the past. Marvels licensing was mostly concentrated within the comic-book industry, selling the publishing license to some book-related businesses or some toy merchants. After Marvel took advantage of broadcast media, such as movies, television, and video games, its licensing become the larges t division and collected the majority of the mesh for the guild. In 2003, licensing accounted for 70. 5% of the gross profit (See Appendix A reckon 1). Licensing profit had a much sharper increase from 2000 to 2003 than the other two businesses (See Appendix A general anatomy 2).In the future, licensing will keep increase and its percentage of revenue will grow, especially if the management adopts a strategy of capitalizing on it. In the past, the toy business was just an annex of the publishing industry. runty effort was invested in toys which were not even mentioned strategic plans. Now the toy industry is the second-highest profit maker in Marvel, generating over $20 trillion in sales in 2003. The toy business is very declare in the future. However its percentage in revenue will ease remain stable or slightly decrease, just as publishing will do, because licensing has such a strong possibility for growth.In addition, while the toy industry competition is too fierce to perm it further achievements. (d) To what finish is Marvels success due to only one character, Spider-Man? How can Marvel develop its lesser-known characters? There is no doubt that, to a extensive extent, Marvels success since the 1960s is due to Spider-Man. However, during the 1990s, the company declined disrespect such a successful superhero. Exploiting strategy by significantly increasing the number of titles stretched out consumers interest. Marvels new chief operating officer, Peter Cuneo, restructured the company with negative assets and turned the company around.Spider-Man was resuscitated in comic-book sales. In the produce Division, Marvels 64. 7% revenue was from Spider-Man among the top famous titles in the second half year of 2003 (See Appendix A Figure 3). In the movie box office revenue, Spider-Man collected 33. 75% revenue in the US market and 37. 2% in the world market among Marvels eight titles movies, ranking the first (See Appendix A Figure 4). Spider-Man has gain ed great achievements, since the company turned around. However, Marvels success is not due to only one character.According to figure 3 and figure 4, other lesser-known characters, such as the X-Men and Fantastic Four, have also contributed to the companys success. The entertainment market is difficult to predict. Consumers interests for media products are notoriously fickle. It could be very risky to continue to infuse resources to Spider-Man. Spreading limited resources to lesser-known characters helps the company flash back risk. Marvel needs to shift their focus to lesser-known characters which have great potential to be popular with wider public.Integrated marketing communication can be a very useful strategy to promote lesser-known characters by using large characters. For example, the Fantastic Four can be guests in Spider-Mans comic-books or movies. When lesser-known characters and Spider-Man are presented to people as Marvels Superheroes, lesser-known characters can be pr omoted by the fame of prominent characters. As Marvels previous CEO Peter Cuneo (2003) said, this is about converting Spider-Man fans into Marvel fans.