Jacob Cleaver
MKT 380-2
EuroDisney Case 1.
What factors contributed to EuroDisney’s poor performance during its first year of operation? What factors contributed to Hong Kong Disney’s poor performance during its first year?
EuroDisney struggled significantly in its first several years after opening due to negligence. Disney had already opened a park in Tokyo in the late 1980’s and it was a major success. They used the same strategy in terms of creation and marketing for the Tokyo park as they did with their original parks in America. Therefore, they assumed that
this same strategy would continue to work throughout the world. However, Europe has strong cultural backgrounds and norms and found the Americanized park rather distasteful. There were many aspects of European culture and expectations that they ignored and did not take into account. The Hong Kong park's early struggles were a little different. Disney had learned from their prior mistakes with EuroDisney and made the park more culturally fitting. However, China has censored much of American culture and
media for a long time. Therefore, many of the Chinese visitors did not know much about the Disney characters and the overall allure of the parks. 2.
To what degree do you consider that these factors were (a) foreseeable and (b) controllable by EuroDisney, Hong Kong Disney, or the parent company, Disney?
The factors that contributed to early struggles were somewhat unforeseeable for Disney when creating their EuroDisney park. They had just come off of a massive success with their park in Tokyo, and thought they could make parks throughout the world with little to no cultural adjustment simply because they were Disney. However, it was definitely controllable on Disney’s part as they should have done more extensive research into European culture. Disney thought that whatever they touched would turn to gold. In terms of Hong Kong Disney, the factors that constituted Disney’s beginning struggles were foreseeable and controllable. They had learned from their prior mistakes. Although, Disney should have been able to acknowledge that Chinese citizens have not been exposed to the traditions and characters of Disney due to government censorship. 4. How do you assess the cross-cultural marketing skills of Disney?
I think the cross-cultural marketing skills of Disney were initially very poor. Disney had so much success over the years in America, and they had an ignorant mindset
when expanding to other cultures. Disney had a belief that everything they did in America would translate to be just as attractive and successful in other cultures. They did not take these other cultures and preferences into account and it hurt Disney early on.
