New Disney World Theme Park
Joint Venture Marketing Between Disney and Nintendo
The group has decided to create a Nintendo World as part of Disney Corporation’s effort to inject a bigger portion of its capital expenditures on the development of a new Disney World theme park with a new theme. Nintendo Corporation Limited is a Japanese multinational electronics and software development and manufacturing company. The company owns patents and other intellectual properties in the field of gaming and this is the type of asset that the group is aiming to make use of. Some of the most popular gaming titles that Nintendo Corporation owns are Super Mario and Pokémon.
Super Mario is a console-based game that was first introduced by Nintendo in 1985. It was released for various platforms like Nintendo Entertainment Systems, Game Boy, and the Wii. Needless to say it is one of the most successful gaming titles for Nintendo; the characters of the game Mario, Luigi, the Princess, and the faces of the monsters would surely be easily recognized by the people who would visit the park. The original plan, however, involves the concept of making a kart-racing track for visitors that would be inspired by the different characters and stages found in the different iterations of Nintendo’s Super Mario series. Then again, the focus would be on the Super Mario kart-racing concept. This would entail the first phase of the Nintendo World.
The second phase involves the development of a Pokémon themed Disney World. This world would be a part of the larger Nintendo World. It would share the space with other Nintendo titles and platforms (i.e. Super Mario, among others). In terms of size, however, the space that should be allocated for the Pokémon world should be larger than that for Super Mario because of the sheer complexity of the theme park ideas for the former. Basically, what the team managed to come up with was the soon to be available concept of Pokémon Go where anyone with a Pokémon Go-capable device (e.g. smartphone, tablet computer, or any required console) would have the ability to catch a Pokémon in the real world. The Pokémon theme park is envisioned to become a global marketplace for Pokémon traders and trainers. The construction of a Pokémon gym at the center of the park is also included in the plans.
All of these are great ideas and whether they are going to materialize in the actual Nintendo World or not depends Disney’s response to the joint venture proposal. Nintendo owns all the rights to use Super Mario and Pokémon and any other related-element for commercial purposes because they are the ones who developed it but Disney owns the property where it will be set up. The ultimate goal is to secure a deal between the two. In order to ensure the success of the plan to develop a Nintendo World, the group should be able to offer a joint venture deal that would be hard for Disney to refuse.
Product and Service Alignment
Joint marketing efforts involving both Disney and Nintendo should be based on alignment. The themes and all the associated products in the new Nintendo World should complete each of the stakeholder party’s needs and expectations. In this case, Disney is requesting for bids from companies like Nintendo to operate in their proposed property—a new version of Disney World; but this time it would feature characters from the successful bidder. In order to make the joint marketing effort work, there should be an equal opportunity for both Disney and Nintendo to offer new products and services, upgrade existing ones, cross sell, and manage customers’ accounts (whenever needed). A solid example would be an agreement where Disney allows Nintendo to make use of its theme park—which will be advertised as a Disney-owned theme park, to generate profit using its Pokémon Go and Super Mario titles. With this, both companies manage to improve the exposure of their respective products and services. Disney gets to inform the public that they own the site where the Nintendo World is at; this can be received by the public as a message saying that all theme parks developed by Disney would be awesome and high quality like Nintendo World. Nintendo, on the other hand, would be able to revise their stagnating franchises namely Pokémon Go and Super Mario. If this becomes successful, Nintendo might offer bigger partnerships with Disney. They may start to have the same arrangements with the creation of another theme park that would be based on another set of Nintendo-owned titles.
Access to Markets
One of the key objectives of this joint venture should be to allow Nintendo to have access to Disney’s customers and markets and allow Disney to have access to that of Nintendo. With this kind of arrangement, both Nintendo and Disney get to increase their market exposure. They get to access the customers of their competitors. Theoretically, that would lead to the doubling down of their customer traffic levels. Higher customer traffic levels mean greater profits especially when the sales conversion levels are equally high. Joint marketing refers to any process where one product or service is provided by one company and then distributed by another company. In this case, it would be Nintendo who provides the products and services via their Nintendo World. On the other hand, it would be Disney who would distribute those products and services via their corporate-owned theme parks. In order to make the joint marketing work, both brands should be present in the products and services. A good option would be to create a new logo for the joint venture. That way, it would be easier for the customers to associate the new logo for the new business venture launched by Disney and Nintendo. This would be the preferred option for long term joint ventures.
Creation of Joint Marketing Materials
The marketing materials should also contain the name and as much as possible the logo of both the participating companies and brands. If the proposal to create a new logo that has both Disney and Nintendo’ touches in it gets approved, this logo should be used in all marketing and advertising materials. This way, the target market would be aware of the specific arrangement between the two companies.
An excellent marketing idea for the two companies would be the development of an audio visual presentation that would be made viral in social medial platforms. With two of the biggest names in the entertainment and leisure industry being combined (i.e. Nintendo and Disney), a lot of people, namely the fans of both companies, would surely be excited to follow. The same principle should be applied in all other advertising and marketing campaigns that the companies would conduct.
Lineup of Products and Services for Marketing
The lineup of products and services should be clear as well. In the case of the Super Mario Kart concept, for example, one way to both incorporate Disney and Nintendo’s brand in there would be to feature Super Mario racing karts that are being driven by Disney characters. That way, both the marketing and advertising needs and expectations of the company would be fulfilled. In the Pokémon Go part of the theme park on the other hand, featuring people wearing Disney character costumes doing Pokémon battles would be a nice twist that the audience may like. Disney monsters being stored in Pokémon balls may also be a great twist that the site visitors may find hilarious. More importantly, these joint venture marketing ideas satisfy the basic condition in joint venture marketing that requires both brands to be present in the actual product or service that they are selling.
Everything will depend on the type of arrangement that Disney would approve. Most likely, Disney would approve the setup where Disney characters are making use of Nintendo-inspired technologies from the two franchises because that is the most realistic and less radical approach to combine the essence of the two companies’ products.
The images of these twisted products (combination of Nintendo and Disney ideas) would surely stimulate the fans’ and other audience’s interests. People who are always on the lookout to try something new will most likely be hooked. It was impossible to witness Disney characters kart-racing with each other before; now, with this joint venture, that was just turned into a reality.
