Branded by the mouse
Disney today announced that they will start selling cellphones to teenagers. The noticeable features of the phones are not just the Disney logo, but strong financial control features allowing parents to control spending limits, who the child can talk to, SMS and photos.
This is interesting from a marketing viewpoint because it clearly points out what has been going on for awhile--brands are more important than niche expertise. It makes more sense for Disney to sell a phone to kids than it would for IBM to sell them to adults.
As communications technology becomes more commoditized, then it becomes ever easier for companies with strong brands like Disney to immediately become competitive on pretty much whatever they want to, as long as their brand supports it.
It does not, however, work the other way around. This is bad news for the Yahoos of the world whose brand is amorphous--Disney's is razor-sharp. I would expect to see more of this from any other company who owns a demographic niche.
In the modern age, brands are more important than ever. If I had any brains (which I don't), I'd set up a company to build a brand. We're talking about Disney, Harley-Davidson, Oprah. These are killer brands and they can sell candy bars, phones or timeshares in Florida. The brand is more important than the technology.
Posted on April 05, 2006
