When Disney becomes Disney+, where does the magic go?
By: Andre Matt
Tags: Disney, Collective Journey, UX, Streaming, Branding

Branding and user experience (UX) are often considered two distinct disciplines that coordinate only occasionally, for example, when developing a website or an app. However, at its core, UX is about understanding users and customers, and then designing useful products that encourage positive experiences. Branding, in its essence, is a promise for this customer. It is the promise that allows the customer of that brand to know what to expect. Not only what to expect from the brand’s products, but also about how it looks, speaks and acts.

It is the experiences with any points of contact of the brand, including digital products and media roll-outs, that will reinforce the user’s perceptions about a brand or undo them. It is vital to the reputation of this company that users not only have positive experiences with the developed digital products, but experiences that reinforce the values ​​and ideals that this brand claims to embody.

This user experience with the brand is perennial — it doesn’t end when he stops using the product. It is present all the time with the user, through actions and communication objectives that, faithful to the brand values, inspire the user to return. Isolated in themselves, products can provide excellent experiences, but it is the values ​​of a brand that give the reason that the user needs to embark on these journeys.

Once Upon a time..

Aurora Miranda & Pato Donald — The Three Caballeros (1944)

Not only because we almost had our own Disneyland in 1961, but Disney has always maintained a great relationship with Brazil.

The company has always operated in the country bringing its films, animations, comics and other products, becoming part of our lives, mixing with our culture, influencing and reflecting our perception of how these stories — inspirational fables about creativity, dreams and imagination — are told.

For years, Disney operated alongside major national broadcasters such as Globo and SBT, in agreements and partnerships that aimed to bring the brand’s “magic” to all Brazilian homes, thanks to the reach and massive power of public television. Even so, the distribution of films and programs was never exclusive to any of these channels, being present in all possible formats — from cassette tapes to DVDs and Blu-rays, found both in humble newsstands and large hypermarket chains — besides subscription channels like Disney Channel, Disney XD, Jetix and Disney Junior, as well as Radio Disney, composing decades of an omnipresent presence in the national market.

The message that brand branding has always sought to communicate was consistent and clear: Disney’s magic has always wanted to be accessible in Brazil.

A new arena

One day, however, this fantastic kingdom was forced to lift the doors of its castle and surround its borders: Disney was entering the great war between streaming services, following the leadership of Netflix, which after promoting a disruption in the rental sector films, innovating the business model, invaded the area of ​​content production, becoming rival to the companies from which it licenses its catalog, such as, for example, Disney itself.

Surrounded by both major producers like HBO and CBS, as well as new players like Amazon and Apple, who see streaming as a profound change in the way we consume content, Disney also decided to establish itself. On November 17, the Disney + service arrived in Brazil. The platform, which unites the productions headed by Disney, in addition to the entire production catalog of Pixar, Marvel and National Geographic, still promises exclusive films and series, at a monthly fee of almost thirty bucks a month.

However, a kingdom of this magnitude cannot be consolidated without causing distortions in a market increasingly disputed by giants. Seeking to offer an attractive product to consumers, Disney has stopped licensing its content to third parties, compromising the catalog not only of other streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, but also of all pay TV and open TV channels that displayed the brand content. In September of this year, as a farewell to the linear channels, the company promoted marathons of Pixar animations, Marvel films and Star Wars, before these contents were exclusive to Disney +. Around the world, Disney has already been canceling its linear channels and focusing on its streaming platform.

The global pandemic of COVID-19, in a way, contributed to accelerate this scenario. A study by Leichtman Research Group Connected 2020 found that 80% of American homes have at least one device connected to the internet — smartTVs, Chromecasts, Apple TV, game consoles, etc. Most importantly, 40% of adults watched TV through a connected device. Only four years ago, the percentage was 19%. In other words, 2020 will also be marked in history as the year when streaming overtook cable TV in the number of registered accounts in the world, reaching 1.1 billion. The trend is true for Latin America as well.

And of course, for Disney, this scenario is even more auspicious. 2019 was the year that the company achieved the best results in its history, with the hype managed from the narrative conclusion of real cultural events like Avengers: Endgame and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, as well as the live-action remake of classic brand titles such as The Lion King.

After years of faithfully following and consuming narrative journeys through various products in different channels, so present that these stories can easily be confused with our own lives, the rat lift the doors of his castle and is, conveniently, with the knife and the cheese in his hands.

Journeys, collective and parallel

In early October, the company sent a press release informing that it is ending the distribution of DVDs and Blu-rays of its contents in Brazil and Latin America by the end of the year, in addition to a restructuring in the process of creating projects for films and series. With this, the company puts streaming distribution as a priority.

“People in Latin America and the world are used to seeing fragmented content, with films that are seen here, there, subscribe to a cable system or film channel, but that will end. Disney content will no longer be available through any third party reseller, cable channel or on-demand offer other than Disney + […] this is an aggressive decision ”. — said Diego Lerner, president of Disney in Latin America.

Considering the global scenario, the difference of Disney + is exclusivity, but in Brazil, this is exclusive for whom?

“Me, after I convinced my mother to subscribe to Disney+ even though I had Netflix, Globoplay, Amazon and Spotify”

“How I see who has Disney +, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Globoplay and Netflix”

Contrary to what is initially imagined, this format of content distribution does not bring more accessibility to the user, but rather reveals a very evident cut of class, after all, this access becomes exclusive only to the restricted portion of the Brazilian population that has, not only a good internet at their disposal, but also the possibility to invest monthly in information, entertainment and culture, among the various platforms available on the market.

This aggressive movement has strong side effects on the user’s perception of the brand, which translates into new touchpoints that this user will be forced to establish on their own, in order to continue their journey with the products developed by the company, regardless the ideal onboarding established by Disney+.

“Waiting for the 6 year old boys’ video tutorial with a crooked audio of how to log in at Disney+ for free”

“I just wanted a friend to give me their Disney+ login”

More than that, these parallel user journeys reveal stories that are more real and true about the behavior and the way the brand audience seeks and consumes this content, oblivious and uninterested in market fluctuations and disputes between titanic conglomerates. In other words, for those whom the magic of Disney is of real worth, the verticalization and exclusivity of a platform doesn’t matter.

The last decade has brought us the revolution of streaming platforms, but it has also revolutionized the way in which we relate to entertainment. Popular culture has become increasingly rich, inclusive, challenging and free, where the role of the team of executives in suits as gatekeepers of this content no longer fits. Within our communities, that role is now ours. We become opinion makers, not only indicating what to watch, but how to watch, undoing inconveniences of price, language and copyright, actively participating in the collective journeys and experiences of other users with the brand.

A branding that aims to lead this revolution needs to be aware that it is necessary to reflect the promise of its values ​​in its institutional behavior, not just in its products. And this is accomplished either by applying the brand attributes to interactions in experience guidelines, structuring maps of how the company interacts with its audience, or by applying constant user perception tests about the brand.

Especially because developing products and services that do not portray a company’s culture and purpose, even if they are aligned with the needs of users, tend not to be sustainable in the long run. And if there is one thing that Disney’s own enchanted fables have taught us all these years, it is that for every Sheriff of Nottingham, with its infinite public taxation, there will always be a Robin Hood waiting in the forest. Where there is a East India Trading Company, megacorporations looking for large commercial monopolies, it is natural that in these waters you will also find pirates.