Jungle Book Question

 

The changes in marketing and circulation from 1967 to 2016 have helped the film industry target multiple audiences in order to gain a maximum profit off their movies. This has been done mainly through the advancement of technology, and the acquiring of other franchises/networks.

In 1967, Disney handled its own marketing and promotion for its own films, which minimizes risk, The company had already expanded into theme parks (Disneyland) and television. Disney had already been aware of the value of merchandising from the beginning, which gave them a head start. Disney built brands around JB characters, enabling them to be successful in live shows, toys and merchandise, video games and entertainment parks. For example, McDonalds had Jungle Book 2 Happy Meals which on turn promoted the first film. Disney also licensed characters to be used by other companies, such as a video game for Sega and a Gameboy video game in the early 1990s. These marketing techniques were great for targeting children and families, however that was it. They only had 1 small target audience, which meant they had to milk the film out over a few decades in order to gain maximum profit and they were all above the line techniques.

By the time 2016 came around, Disney's marketing had developed enough to target multiple different audiences, literally changing how the film industry gains and maintains their audiences. They did this by using new, below the line techniques, truly focusing on specific audiences in order to meet their needs.

Stereotypically, women and girls are pulled closer to watch a movie by the Disney magic castle logo on trailers, so the opposite can be said for men. This is why Disney aggressively targeted JB to male audiences. Commercials on the Disney owned ESPN showed the movie as coming from the studio that brought you "Pirates of the Caribbean" instead of "Cinderella". They also released and extended 3D trailer for JB in front of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" which had a 58% male audience. Disney teamed up with Univision, the largest Hispanic-American television network, in order to hook the Latino crowd. Cinema surveys indicate that Hispanic audiences buy tickets in large groups therefore we can assume that once you have attracted one person, you have got the entire family coming to see the movie. Being able to target these two audiences show that through the acquiring of new franchises/networks, Disney is now able to increase its marketing, and therefore profit, dramatically, changing the film industry for the benefit of film studios.

In 1967, there were only two places you could watch a movie, in the cinema, and at home on VHS. In order to maximize The Jungle Books circulation, there was an initial VHS release in 1976, and two re-releases in 1984 and 1990. However in 2016, you are able to watch The Jungle Book in cinema, on DVD/Blu-ray, on PVoD such as Amazon, and streaming, like Netflix and Disney+.