Disney's Big Gamble

Streaming has been a very competitive field that has taken off in the past decade.  Many companies like Netflix and Hulu have made streaming their main business activity.  While others such as HBO and YouTube are starting to add streaming as another service their company offers.  This is the risk that Disney is taking by starting their own streaming service in 2019.  Offering their own service will have it's advantages and disadvantages.  

Disney's biggest advantage is that they will have a big catalog of movies that many people enjoy.  They can also see what is working and not working with all of the other big streaming services out there to try and make theirs the best.  If Disney can incorporate some of their property's that they own such as ABC and ESPN, then that will give them even more content and potentially live sports.  Right now that would be something that no other single streaming service has at the moment.

All of the various competitors that are already streaming will be the biggest obstacle for Disney to hurdle.  Many people could already be loyal to a a few streaming services and decide that it's not worth it to add Disney to the ones they already have.  Right now, people could be watching all of the Disney content on current services and not have to buy Disney's.  This will of course only be a short term issue as they will add more as time goes on.           

Hopefully Disney has good foresight and tries to address these issues before their streaming service is released.  Competition is supposed to be good for consumers.  This is the biggest reason to be excited for the future of streaming and visual media.  All of the biggest media companies are trying to expand to streaming and beyond.  Overall, there should be better and better content coming in the near future to make everyone happy.   

The Future of Business?

Cryptocurrency is the hottest thing on the market at the moment.  Cryptocurrency is thought to be a new disruptive technology that will eventually be adopted and used by everyone.  This is why it is causing such a stir among individuals and businesses.  Many people have differing opinions on cryptocurrency, some think that it is great and will be a normal part of society in the near future.  Others believe that it is just a fad, and that it isn't a secure or real way to use currency. 

Predicting the future is impossible.  So if you think that cryptocurrency will be used then you can get out ahead of it and be ready for it.  But if your'e wrong, then you could waste a lot of time and resources anticipating something that doesn't happen.  Or you could get left behind if you do nothing and cryptocurrency becomes a legitimate form of currency online.  This is the risk that individuals and more importantly businesses have to deal with at this moment when it is so popular.

Cryptocurrency and more specifically Bitcoin could be used as a marketing tool that attracts younger more tech-savvy consumers.  Companies that don't adapt to the new trends are no longer around.  PayPal is one of the largest online money transfer companies.  This is part of the marketing strategy of Bitcoin.  They think they are going to be the next PayPal, and if you don't use them on your website then you'll be left behind.

Data breaches are the next marketing tool that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are going to use.  In a world where there are more and more data breaches happening everyday, this could be their a comparative advantage that other companies can't promise.  A data breach gives the hacker all of a company or customer's information, including credit cards.  With cryptocurrency, people don't have to enter their credit card information.  This means customers don't have to worry about their information being stolen, and companies don't have to worry about their customer's most sensitive information being breached.

It is a risky decision that companies are being faced with at this very moment.  Whether they should adopt a cryptocurrency before it's mainstream, or potentially fall behind and lose business because you didn't prepare for it.  Overall, it's interesting to see what is going to happen and see how companies adapt their business to the new trends. 
       

Marketing After Disasters

Marketing can be hard to do when things are changing at such a fast pace.  It gets even trickier when a company has to deal with sensitive subjects.  In today's world, everything can be a sensitive topic for different people.  Especially right now at this moment there are tough things going on. People are losing their lives, homes, friends, and even families.  So this can be a complicated time for companies to market themselves when people are going through horrific things.   

Businesses can't just stop what they're doing, wait for these disasters to be cleaned up and then start back up.  They are responsible to their shareholders and so much more to continue and try to profit as much as they possibly can.  For example, businesses and even the government are currently trying to market the state of Florida.  Tourism is a big economic driver in Florida.  So to get tourist to come back after Irma hit is the current challenge that they are facing.  This is something that they have to do very carefully to not upset people that still haven't recovered from the hurricane.

Visit Florida is a company working with the government to get tourist heading back into Florida.  Their slogan is "sunshine, blue skies and good times."  This is a perfect way to market Florida at this particular point in time.  Florida is the Sunshine State, so this slogan plays off of that.  They also want people to know that the storm is over and there are blue skies.  Most likely when people are picturing Florida in their head at this moment, their thinking of the hurricane and the damage that it caused.  This slogan says, all of that is gone and over with and now there are blue skies instead of gray.  And finally, they highlight that you can have a good time if you come to Florida.  Everything with the hurricane is over and you can enjoy yourself when you come to visit Florida.

This is a great example of how to market a place or business after a horrible event.  Timing is one thing that has to be perfect when running a campaign like this.  Visit Florida wouldn't want to run this campaign if there was another hurricane on the way.  Or if the clean up effort was going on and people weren't ready for tourist to come visit the state.  Marketers in Las Vegas are going to have to figure out what they can do to help the victims and the companies they work for.  Also, you don't want to do something dumb and offend a lot of people.  So marketers have to be extremely careful about what they do pertaining to the awful events that occurred and when they do it.