News Disney Explores Amazon Prime-Like Membership Program to Offer Discounts and Perks

[hopemax]

That is a myth. Individual restaurant P&Ls received credit for the menu price of items ordered, and the offset for the difference between the menu price and the value of a dining credit was accounted for centrally.

Okay, thank you. I was hoping to use a simple and familiar analogy to demonstrate the point, but I guess a longer explanation will be needed.

So let's say this includes free shipping at ShopDisney. Or free parking at WDW Resort Hotels. Those are existing revenue streams for both entities. So if this comes along, and some money shifts from "ShopDisney" to "Disney Prime+" or whatever they call it. At some point the entity will be evaluated for their numbers compared to last year. So if shipping revenue or parking revenue were to decline because instead of me paying $7.99 or $17.99 at the point of sale, now I'm paying $0 via a bundle program, would you expect a similar accounting centrally? Or would the entity be expected to close that shortfall via decreased costs / increased prices for people not using the bundle program?

 

[HauntedPirate]

Incidentally, anyone looked at the availability for the Galactic Starcruiser lately?

Funny you should ask... Plenty of availability as soon as next week. And most of October and November, including Thanksgiving week and weekend.

 

[Beacon Joe]

Funny you should ask... Plenty of availability as soon as next week. And most of October and November, including Thanksgiving week and weekend.

View attachment 663989

Right now, some middle manager in marketing is yelling at his secretary, "Find me some pixiedust vloggers, STAT!"

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Right now, some middle manager in marketing is yelling at his secretary, "Find me some pixiedust vloggers, STAT!"

Middle managers don't have secretaries.

 

[Hcalvert]

The WSJ has updated the article with more information-

“A membership program could help Disney learn more about its customers’ behavior by collecting data about which shows they watched, trips they took and merchandise they purchased. Ultimately, Disney’s goal is to harness that data to make recommendations based on customers’ preferences, some of the people said.

For example, a fan of Star Wars rides at its theme park would get recommended related programming on Disney+. That cross-company effort, which is ongoing, involves top leaders including Mike White, who leads Disney’s metaverse strategy.

In exploring the membership program, Disney has studied Amazon’s program as well as Apple One, which bundles cloud storage, AppleTV+ and Apple Arcade, among other services, for a starting price of $14.95 a month, some of the people familiar with the discussions said.

Disney has discussed adding perks to the membership program from third parties, such as discounts to tickets for Disney shows on Broadway, said one of the people familiar with the discussions.”

As most know, they already track our spending, viewing, travelling, etc. by requiring the same login for all the Disney products (Disney+, shopDisney, Disney gift cards, the parks app, etc.). I know that they use that data already for targeted promotions.

 

[Andrew C]

Middle managers don't have secretaries.

They are lucky if they get a contractor that reports to them.

 

[drizgirl]

Disney doesn't have broad enough appeal for this to work. For them to compare this offering with Amazon Prime, which offers everything from shampoo to textbook rentals. Amazon is a logistics company that expanded to entertainment. Disney is an entertainment company trying to expand to..... what? I don't see it. Maybe if they had worked a deal with Wal-mart, but they already worked a deal with Paramount Plus.

 

[larryz]

Not sure if you’re joking but could see one “benefit” of this is Disney Prime members get advanced reservation options or something

I've been expecting a mandatory "club" membership for some time now... if it isn't DVC ownership, I can see a buy-in option. Maybe D23 Platinum.

 

[Tom P.]

That’s your takeaway, huh?

“Allegiance” is required in consumer products? I thought that was the producers job to procure…

I must have been hung over in marketing and Econ…
…probably was…actually

I stand by what I said.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I stand by what I said.

…it’s so unfair these days to be a Wall Street dominated conglomerate, huh?

 

[RSoxNo1]

I'm looking forward to Disney talking about this for 45 minutes at the Parks and Resorts AND CONSUMER PRODUCTS presentation.

 

[Tom P.]

…it’s so unfair these days to be a Wall Street dominated conglomerate, huh?

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Disney does some things I like. They do some things that I hate. Most of the things I hate are the kind of things we're forbidden to talk about on these boards and that I'd be called a bigot for expressing, so we'll let that go. But there's also lots I like about Disney and, particularly, the parks.

My point, though, was that I don't believe many of the posters here are Disney fans. I don't buy the whole "oh, we *love* Disney, but *real* Disney, the way it was before it became a greedy hellhole and we're only fighting for what we love" shtick. I think we have a lot of people posting here who are just angry for the sake of being angry and really enjoy getting on a forum and bashing Disney. And I really truly do believe that the same group of people would never be pleased with anything Disney did, because they *want* to be mad at Disney. Sometimes getting angry can be fun.

So that's where I stand.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Disney doesn't have broad enough appeal for this to work. For them to compare this offering with Amazon Prime, which offers everything from shampoo to textbook rentals. Amazon is a logistics company that expanded to entertainment. Disney is an entertainment company trying to expand to..... what? I don't see it. Maybe if they had worked a deal with Wal-mart, but they already worked a deal with Paramount Plus.

You don't have to have a broad diversity of products to have a membership plan. Door Dash has a membership plan. AMC has a membership plan. You don't have to sell toilet paper and diamond rings to have a membership plan.

Cross product sales for Disney includes: their streamers, their parks, their cruises, their sight-seeing trips ('adventures'), and their merch. Lots and lots and lots of merch. That doesn't sound so broad, but think about everything in the parks that is a separate price from the entry ticket can be membership-ized: food, special events, all the upsells, tours, lounges, premium seating, Lightning Lanes, etc...

Not to mention going into new markets they haven't touched yet.

 

[drizgirl]

You don't have to have a broad diversity of products to have a membership plan. Door Dash has a membership plan. AMC has a membership plan. You don't have to sell toilet paper and diamond rings to have a membership plan.

Cross product sales for Disney includes: their streamers, their parks, their cruises, their sight-seeing trips ('adventures'), and their merch. Lots and lots and lots of merch. That doesn't sound so broad, but think about everything in the parks that is a separate price from the entry ticket can be membership-ized: food, special events, all the upsells, tours, lounges, premium seating, Lightning Lanes, etc...

Not to mention going into new markets they haven't touched yet.

Of course you don't need a broad diversity to have a membership plan. But the article said some Execs were internally calling this new program "Disney Prime". That assumes a comparison I just don't see.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I'm looking forward to Disney talking about this for 45 minutes at the Parks and Resorts AND CONSUMER PRODUCTS presentation.

You're getting WAY too hung up on the "Amazon Prime" reference in the headline.

 

[Phicinfan]

Of course you don't need a broad diversity to have a membership plan. But the article said some Execs were internally calling this new program "Disney Prime". That assumes a comparison I just don't see.

They sell incredible variants of merchandise, dishes, towels, clothing, toys and so on.
They now have a huge digital online capability as Amazon does
About the only miss I can see is appliances and books. Which you don't need since they can offer resort opportunities and park pass advantages.
They are more than capable of pulling this off

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Of course you don't need a broad diversity to have a membership plan. But the article said some Execs were internally calling this new program "Disney Prime". That assumes a comparison I just don't see.

They sell incredible variants of merchandise, dishes, towels, clothing, toys and so on.
They now have a huge digital online capability as Amazon does
About the only miss I can see is appliances and books. Which you don't need since they can offer resort opportunities and park pass advantages.
They are more than capable of pulling this off

EDIT: Never mind, I've decided I don't care.

 

[dreday3]

EDIT: Never mind, I've decided I don't care.

Disamazon Prime!

 

[drizgirl]

They sell incredible variants of merchandise, dishes, towels, clothing, toys and so on.
They now have a huge digital online capability as Amazon does
About the only miss I can see is appliances and books. Which you don't need since they can offer resort opportunities and park pass advantages.
They are more than capable of pulling this off

People who buy Disney themed products for their homes are a small percentage of the population.

And seriously. Who here thinks Disney IT can handle ramping up anything?

 

[MisterPenguin]

About the only miss I can see is appliances and books.

Well, the entirety of Marvel comics, and novelizations and expansion of Star Wars stories, and children's books and coloring books...