Marvel Case Report – Marketing

1. Cardinal Problems/Opportunities:

•Marvel’s merchandise line is limited to chiefly the superhero genre. This makes diversifying more hard. •Marvel competes non merely with DC Comic strips but besides with other types of movies ( such as action. suspense. thriller. horror. sci-fi. etc. ) . When people go to the films for amusement. they don’t typically merely travel to watch amusing book hero films. Therefore. Marvel faces competition from a broad scope of genres ( and production companies like Paramount that produce different genres of films ) .

•Marvel can turn each amusing book character into its ain trade name and capitalise on extra watercourses of gross through licensing. Toys. Jerseies. tickers. and video games based on popular amusing book characters are all merchandises that can assist augment Marvel’s gross. •Not all characters are of equal worth to Marvel. Spiderman and X-Men are much more valuable trade names than Daredevil and the Punisher.

2. New Information:

•Marvel continues to hold assorted success with its character batting order.

Elekra merely grossed $ 56. 7M worldwide while Iron Man grossed over $ 585M worldwide ( hypertext transfer protocol: //boxofficemojo. com/movies/ ? id=elektra. htm ; hypertext transfer protocol: //boxofficemojo. com/movies/ ? id=ironman. htm ) . • Marvel Entertainment’s competitory landscape has become even tougher. Not merely must Marvel’s lineup compete with DC Comic’s Superman and Batman. but besides amusing book heroes like Transformers and G. I. Joe ( interestingly. Marvel used to have the rights to Transformers and G. I. Joe but sold those rights to Hasbro ) ( hypertext transfer protocol: //forums. superherohype. com/showthread. php? t=265502 ) .

•Marvel has been able to maintain the X-Men franchise afloat with X-Men Beginnings: Wolverine and X-Men: First-Class ( though it does look to be weakening some ) ( hypertext transfer protocol: //boxofficemojo. com/ showdowns/chart/ ? id=vs-xmen. htm ) . •Disney purchased Marvel for $ 4 billion in 2009 ( hypertext transfer protocol: //money. cnn. com/2009/08/31/news/ companies/disney_marvel/index. htm ) .

3. Recommendations:

•Not every Marvel film is a blockbuster. In fact. some of them are flops. While Marvel would surely see growing in concentrating on production and distribution more. it risks stretching itself beyond its nucleus competences. While successful films could turn out to be really profitable for Marvel. lacklustre films could turn out to be financially damaging if Marvel besides produced and distributed all of its movies. •Marvel must larn to pull off its growing. It can non forever rely on its hard currency cattles Spiderman and X-Men. However. new coevalss equate to new possible markets. Reintroducing authoritative characters to new coevalss could interpret into repeating gross watercourses.

•Marvel should leverage its growing on one manus and non stretch itself excessively much beyond its nucleus competences on the other. Geting more into production could turn out to be financially good for Marvel. On the other manus. I would urge go forthing the distribution to those companies that specialize in that and are big plenty to be able to diversify without it harming their concern. Marvel’s nucleus competence is in developing its characters and plot lines. While Marvel could spread out their nucleus competences to include production. making so excessively much to include distribution might destruct Marvel’s nucleus competences.

•Marvel has 1000s of characters. It should strategically develop some of its highest-potential characters. However. this has besides backfired ( ex: Daredevil and Elektra ) . It worked with Iron Man and seems to be working with Thor though. •Marvel can go on to make new watercourses of gross by sharply seeking licencing chances and even international licensing understandings. Licensing can be highly profitable. particularly when attached to a moneymaking movie franchise.