Too Cruel for School: A Social Media Marketing Strategy Summary
Introduction
Disney’s soon-to-be-released Cruella is centered around a famous villain from the classic picture 101 Dalmatians (ScreenRant, 2021). According to ScreenRant (2021), the live-action movie starring Emma Stone will take place in 1970’s London and show the audience the origin story of Estella and her transformation into the Dalmatian-obsessed Cruella de Vil. Cruella was originally slated for a theatrical-only release. With many theatrical markets shut down from the COVID pandemic, Disney decided to take advantage of their online streaming service and add a premium digital Disney+ release (D’Alessandro, 2021).
Disney released Mulan and Raya and the Last Dragon similarly on Disney+. Disney subscribers have the option to pay an additional one-time fee of $29.99 to watch these movies at release, or they could wait a while longer to see the movies on Disney+ without paying the fee. Mulan helped increase subscriptions by 68% and contributed to increased spending of subscribers by 193% (McGuire, 2020). Mulan would bring in 35.5 million dollars (all net profit for Disney) during its opening weekend. Raya and the Last Dragon wasn’t as successful as it brought in 23.4 million dollars in the first three weekends (D’Alessandro, 2021).
The marketing strategy will be split into three stages. These stages are pre-event, during-event, and post-event. The pre-event will be from February 23 through May 23rd. Principles of the J-curve outlined by Darlow (2014, p. 162) will be used with an announcement period, generated and sustained buzz period, followed by the launch period. The during-event spans May 24th through August 16th. This time period will generate interest for the movie, promote Disney+ subscriptions, and communicate incentives for purchasing Cruella viewing options for opening day until the movie is available for home release. The post-event starts August 17th and ends on September 30th. Post-event content will focus on a buyer persona that was on the fence about watching Cruella and could still be influenced to watch the movie on Disney+ at no additional cost or purchase other home-viewing options.
The strategy for this project proposes SMART goals for Disney regarding Cruella and Disney+. Disney can increase their first quarter 2021 Disney+ subscribers from 94.9 million (Stoll, 2021) to 100 million by the start of May. The second goal is for Cruella to bring in 40 million dollars from Disney+ opening weekend. The Walt Disney Company’s mission includes entertaining, informing, and inspiring people with storytelling, iconic brands, and using innovative technologies to become the premier entertainment company (Disney, 2021). Disney can use social media platforms to drive a marketing plan for meeting these SMART goals while maintaining the integrity of the company’s mission.
Campaign
The social media promotion for Cruella will use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube. The voice for this campaign will be consistent across all platforms and will require a delicate balance. Disney is known for its family-friendly movies but the strategy for Cruella seems to be pushing their traditional boundaries to appeal to a slightly older audience. Cruella has a PG-13 rating for “thematic elements” and “violence” (Lue, 2021). While Disney has had other movies with the same rating, this is the first movie in the 101 Dalmatians series that has been rated above PG (Lue, 2021). Add the fact that the movie is an origin story centered around a villain, and how she gets to a point to find it acceptable to be cruel towards animals, this story could be grittier than any other Disney movie.
Created content for this promotion needs to keep the traditional Disney persona in mind, but also be edgy in the way it is promoted. Grunge-themed graphics emphasizing black and white, good vs. evil, and red hand-written text can be used in a similar way that inspired Saul Bass and his posters in the 1960s and 1970s. Promotions for merchandise can feature soft cuddling toy stuffed-animal Dalmatians, but with the message to collect these toys to keep them safe from Cruella. Hashtags will be consistently used across platforms along with the voice. Hashtags include #Cruella, #PerfectlyWretched, and #101Reasons. A hashtag #CruellaRemix will be a promotion for fan-generated content posts. Emma Stone can use #CruellaCosplay when challenging fans to post pictures of their cosplay inspired from the movie. The #DisneyPlus hashtag can be incorporated as it will be the viewing platform we are promoting with this strategy. The #Cruella hashtag can include an emoticon of her character, while the #101Reasons hashtag can include an emoticon of a puppy. The hashtag emoticons can be available during the length of the marketing plan.
Facebook includes 2.7 billion active monthly users (Barnhart, 2021). The largest active age group of Facebook includes users ages 25 to 34 years (Barnhart, 2021) where many young parents can be reached. Engaging with parents on social media is important as they most likely pay for streaming subscriptions in a household. This is confirmed by Brandon Katz (2020) when he reported that 50% of internet users with children under the age of 10 had access to Disney+ by March of 2020. Katz (2020) states during that period, 55% of Disney+ subscribers were households with children.
Instagram boasts 1 billion active monthly users. There is a large overlap between Instagram and Facebook as they share the same ad platform (Barnhart, 2021). This is why the largest age group of Instagram matches Facebook with 25 to 34-year-olds (Barnhart, 2021). Instagram is still an essential part of this strategy as it will be easier to share content from mobile devices when we are looking for fan engagement and user-generated content from followers.
Twitter has 187 million active daily users (Barnhart, 2021). Twitter can reach the parents who fall into the 30 to 49-year-old demographic as they represent the largest age group of active users (Barnhart, 2021). A benefit of Twitter includes a great place to stay informed with up-to-date news right when it is released. Twitter is also an effective place to take advantage of influencers promoting Cruella as 80% of tweets come from 10% of the most active accounts (Barnhart, 2021).
TikTok is an emerging social media platform. Although it is the newest member of the social media platform scene, TikTok has over 100 million monthly active users (Barnhart, 2021). The largest age group of TikTok users is 18 to 24-year-olds (Barnhart, 2021). Forty-one percent of internet users in America say they had access to Disney+ by March of 2020 (Katz, 2020). Streaming audiences age 18 to 34 are the largest demographic of watchers, and also the most likely to subscribe to more than one service (Katz, 2020). This is also the age of viewers that fit the best for Cruella’s target audience. In addition to the benefit of reaching TikTok’s demographics, Disney can benefit from user-generated content created by TikTok users just as with Instagram.
YouTube has 2 billion monthly active users in the majority of ages 15 to 25 (Barnhart, 2021). This fits into the age demographic that will be popular for the Cruella PG-13 rating. Benefits of YouTube include ads, posted teasers, trailers, and reactions. A powerful YouTube feature is a secret to most people. YouTube is the second most popular search engine on the internet (Global Reach, 2020).
A partnership with the Humane Society for awareness of proper animal treatment and contact information for animal shelters can reinforce ethical animal treatment and opportunities for happy, healthy homes. Influencers would be a great way to help promote the movie. Itsdougthepug from Instagram would be fun sharing excitement for a movie with dogs. Mxmtoon would be amazing for playing her rendition of a verse in the tune of Cruella De Vil’s song from the original 1961 animated 101 Dalmatians movie. She could then challenge others to do the same, and Disney could release an edited video featuring the song with combined verses from selected participants.
Example Content
Conclusion
Every phase of a marketing strategy is important, but in my opinion, the pre-phase is most essential. I liken a marketing strategy to the Christmas season. What part is the most enjoyable? Everyone likes to open presents (the during-event), but it is so short. It’s not near as much fun cleaning up the wrapping paper and putting decorations away (post-event). In my mind, the build-up, the hype, the fanfare, the preparation, and the lead-up to the event truly make the holiday season. The enjoyment and anticipation of an event set the tone and the mood. If you truly believe in the quality of your product, then you want it to have all the excitement that it deserves.
Each social media platform chosen for this plan served a specific purpose. The platform that would generate the most success would be Instagram. Instagram is very flexible in that it can use images and videos. The picture has an obvious emphasis on fashion, and that works extremely well with the content posted. Cruella would be more popular with the female demographic, and Instagram users are 57% females (Barnhart, 2021). With 25% of teens saying Instagram is their preferred social platform, and 33.1% of Instagram’s total users are 25 to 34-year-olds, Instagram is the best fit for the audience that we are trying to reach (Barnhart, 2021).
No strategy is perfect, and every marketing plan has things that happen that weren’t intended. I feel confident about this strategy as social media platform demographics data, best practices, and research about the company were at the core for each step. If I were to change any of this plan, I could have used more content from the original movies in the pre-phase other than just the revisiting of the song Cruella De Vil. I would also have liked to know if there was a growth in viewings of the animated and live-action movies and if they were related to our promotional Disney+ trial giveaways. Going through the research and process of putting this work together provided a great experience of learning that provided many tools I look forward to putting into practice for future projects.
References
Barnhart, B. (2021, March 9). Social media demographics to inform your brand’s strategy in 2021. SproutSocial. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/.
D’Alessandro, A. (2021, March 23). Disney shifts ‘Black Widow’ & ‘Cruella’ to day & date release intheaters and Disney+, jarring summer box office. https://deadline.com/2021/03/black-widow-cruella-disney-plus-theaters-day-and-date-release-1234720116/.
Darlow, J. (2014). Brands win championships: The secret to winning a national title in the 21st century.Jack and June Publishing.
Disney. (2021). Disney — Leadership, history, corporate social responsibility. The Walt Disney Company. https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/about/#:~:text=The%20mission%20of%20The%20Walt,the%20world's%20premier%20entertainment%20company.
Global Reach. (2020, January 28). The 2nd largest search engine on the internet. Global Reach. https://www.globalreach.com/blog/2020/01/28/the-2nd-largest-search-engine-on-the-internet.
IMDb. (2021). Cruella photo gallery. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3228774/mediaindex?ref_=tt_pv_mi_sm.
IMDb. (2021). One Hundred and One Dalmatians photo gallery. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055254/mediaindex?ref_=tt_pv_mi_sm.
Katz, B. (2020, March 17). Disney+ is already tapping into one of streaming’s biggest growth areas. Observer. https://observer.com/2020/03/disney-plus-subscribers-netflix-demographic-marvel-star-wars/.
Lue, A. (2021, March 17). New ‘Cruella’ rating could change Disney’s reputation. Inside the Magic. https://insidethemagic.net/2021/03/cruella-pg-13-rating-al1/.
McGuire, K. (2020, September 16). Mulan’s 2020 box office explained: Was it a success for Disney+? ScreenRant. https://screenrant.com/mulan-2020-movie-disney-plus-office-success-failure/.
ScreenRant. (2021). Cruella (2021). ScreenRant. https://screenrant.com/tag/cruella/.
Stoll, J. (2021, February 12). Global number of Disney+ subscribers 2021. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1095372/disney-plus-number-of-subscribers-us/.
