Chapter 18: Sales Promotion & Personal Selling

     The Walt Disney Company's primary target market is young children but their consumers are the parents, therefore they have to keep up with each generation of kids and also new parents. Disney has to constantly come up with innovative ways to intrigue the target market while using consumer sales promotion to intrigue the parents as well.

     Disney uses numerous tools for consumer sales promotion, the company is very big on loyalty marketing programs. They used to mail out their catalogs to their loyal customers filled with new products, coupons, and rebates. When making a purchase the customer will simply place a telephone order, but as of April 2006, the Walt Disney Company decided to stop catalog circulation and instead geared its focus on online sales promotion in order to keep up with the new generation of children and parents. Now you can find all of Disney's sales promotions on their Disney Store website.Throughout their website you can find
Special Offers, this week's most successful offer is "Disney's Singing Dolls for $20" which can be bought in the store or online. Most of these special offers consist of deals like "2 for $20 Kid's Graphic Tees" and other premiums like so. There are also other offers such as free shipping when spending a certain amount of money on products. Currently, Disney is offering Free Shipping on your Order of $75 or More which includes a promotional code.

Another loyal marketing tool they offer is co-branded credit cards sponsored by

Visa. They have wide selection of this Disney Rewards Visa Credit Card with different Disney characters imprinted on them, and benefits such as saving 10% on select merchandise purchases each time the consumer spends $50 or more at DisneyStore.com. Disney also offers Gift Cards that can be used at any Disney Theme Park and Resort Hotel, on Disney Cruise Line®, and Disney Stores. Not only does Disney promote their store products, but they also promote their theme park products. Their current promotion on this is Free Shipping with any purchase of Disney Parks Authentic Merchandise which also includes a promotional code. Throughout the website you'll find many discount promotional codes for various products. These codes function like coupons but instead of having to print out anything, the customer just has to copy and paste the code after placing their order.

The Walt Disney Company has so many loyal customers that they have created certain "clubs" that they can join. Many young children join D23 | The Official Disney Fan Club, while many of the actual consumers whom are the parents join the Disney Movie Rewards club. This club includes a free membership, and its purpose is for the member to earn points by purchasing Disney DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, Disney theatrical releases, and eligible Disney CD releases. With theses points the club member is eligible to win any reward listed depending on how many points the reward is worth. Another benefit of being a Disney Movie Rewards club member is that each member is able to participate in Disney's sweepstakes. Currently, the company has two sweepstakes running, one being The Ultimate Lion King Experience and the second being Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Blu-ray™ LEGO® sweepstakes.

     Due to all of these consumer sales promotion devices, the Walt Disney Company does not participate in personal selling. Other factors include: most of these products have low values; they are all standardized products; they have many customers; their products are usually easy to understand; and their customers are geographically dispersed. As a result, the company finds no need to engage in personal selling.