Marvel Enterprises

Marketing Strategy 8050 enquire Enterprises, Inc. look Writing by Xiaodan Dong February, 2008 question Enterprises, Inc. (b) Why was inquires turnaround so prosperous? 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 model is sustainable. Marvels new strategy monetized the suffice library by licensing characters for use with media products. During an era in which kettle of fish media is very important in peoples life, only one media tool, publishing, is not strong decent to expand Marvels influence to consumers.Comic books can target a very limited market, in the main composed of male teenagers and young adults from 13 to 23 years old. It is very difficult to expand this traditional market. After many years of development, this market has matured and is very stable. Meanwhile, people have been more than expose to movies, televisions, and video games, which more effectively influe nce peoples consumption behavior than do shady books. All these media modes are able to reach more consumer segments than traditional comic-book publishing.Marvels potential to develop profit dramatically when its market expand to propagate media. Other consumer products, such(prenominal) as dawdles, worked in conjunction with media products, these cardinal kinds of products reinforced each other. Marvels market expansion developed in both a comprehensive and intensive manner. Marvel emphasized long-term value in its new management strategy. They planed passage for each of their characters. For example, Spider-Mans career over the next five years is to have two more movies, DVDs, toys, a video game, and a promotion with Burger King.The intensive career plan extend characters life and can have each character penetrate into peoples lives by media on a long term basis. The third main strategic dimension is to ensure the quality of the content which featured Marvel characters. Cre ation and consistency in characters and stories mean every(prenominal)thing for Marvel. Before Marvels turnaround, the natural depression publishing market share was mostly due to a lack of quality control. When efforts were put into astir(p) creativity and fine artwork, the publishing business was rejuvenated and the market share increased.The publishing business provides the primary verify 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 agonistical ability in terms of both product life and market expansion. Great potential exists in each aspect of Marvels market. (c) How important are each of Marvels trey divisions Comic books, toys, and licensing to its past and future performance? The comic book business was Marvels plaza in the past and earned almost all revenue enhancement.Co mic 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 huge drop in comic-book sales. After Marvel turned around, comic-book publishing was important as a primary business, but not a core business. Since 1997, Marvels financial performance in comic-book industry has been very stable and the annual sales totaled around 300 million every year. While comic book revenue should continue to be stable, its percentage 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, interchange 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 largest division and collected the majorit y of the profit for the caller-out. In 2003, licensing accounted for 70. 5% of the gross profit (See Appendix A Figure 1). Licensing profit had a much sharper increase from 2000 to 2003 than the other two businesses (See Appendix A Figure 2).In the future, licensing will keep change magnitude 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 respectable an annex of the publishing industry. Little 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 billion in sales in 2003. The toy business is very promising in the future. However its percentage in revenue will still 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 consent to further achievem ents. (d) To what extent 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 abundant extent, Marvels success since the sixties is due to Spider-Man. However, during the 1990s, the company declined despite such a successful superhero. Exploiting strategy by significantly increasing the number of titles stretched out consumers interest. Marvels new CEO, Peter Cuneo, restructured the company with negative assets and turned the company around.Spider-Man was resuscitated in comic-book sales. In the Publishing Division, Marvels 64. 7% revenue was from Spider-Man among the top far-famed titles in the second half year of 2003 (See Appendix A Figure 3). In the movie disaster office revenue, Spider-Man collected 33. 75% revenue in the US market and 37. 2% in the institution market among Marvels eight titles movies, ranking the first (See Appendix A Figure 4). Spider-Man has gained big(p) achievements , since the company turned around. However, Marvels success is not due to only one character.According to witness 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 impress resources to Spider-Man. Spreading limited resources to lesser-known characters helps the company reduce 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 reusable strategy to promote lesser-known characters by using prominent 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 promoted by the fa me of prominent characters. As Marvels previous CEO Peter Cuneo (2003) said, this is about converting Spider-Man fans into Marvel fans.