What is the brand strategy being used by the top dog?

Marvel approaches their brand with a proactive strategy, leaning in on the consumer’s interests and vivacious attention to new products. Their mission statement states that “To expand enables our legends like Thor and The X-Men to come to life in unexpected ways. To resonate with people today. And to evolve with generations to come. (Missionstatement.com, 2022).” In fact, Marvel Studios LLC is set to release Thunderbolts in 2024, a film that features members of an antihero group with superpowers. This movie introduces never before seen characters from comic to camera: Baron Zemo, Taskmaster, Fixer, Moonstone, Songbird, and Atlas. Marvel produces television shows, movies, and comic books as well as merchandise featuring the variables of these stories. With the constant pushing of movies and other entertainment pieces, Marvel is definitely a top dog that guarantees their product’s freshness.

5 Key Points

To achieve this success, Marvel Studios LLC has met the requirements for the guidelines on proactive strategy. The five key points are, “the potential for growth, protection of innovation, market size, competition, and the channel position (Richmond, 2019).”

1. The Potential for Growth: Inclusivity/diversity is shown in The Marvels tv show with the first Indian coming-of-age heroine, Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel. This ties into the expanding stories. With the Multiverse of Madness opening the portals to endless opportunities with the same characters, but with a crazy and always satisfying twist.
2. Protection of Innovation: This means staying relevant in pop culture, like Thor’s Love & Thunder that briefly interacts with Bao, a “real” dumpling with anime eyes, rosy cheeks, and a high-pitched voice. Another feature to ensure that no one else can tamper with, is patent protection. In the end, you don’t want someone to make the exact same thing and take money as a result of your time and hard work. So, Marvel has certainly trademarked, copy wrote, and patented every avenue to ensure that the uniqueness in their brand endures.
3. Market Size: Growing since 1939, Marvel has fans which include the Silent Generation to Generation Alpha. Collectively, we have helped Marvel Studios, LLC to amass $22.59 billion in earnings thus far.
4. Competition: There will always be an increasing torment to race for production by way of the copycat corporations. DC and Marvel each bring their own advantages but, it’s all about what the people want and owning the brand image accordingly. Occasionally, you even have to adjust your image if that means more consumers will prove their loyalty.
5. The Channel Position: Most commonly used channels to reach their audience is on social media. Though, Marvel is everywhere. Branded with accounts for each character, each movie, and fan accounts, behave like an authorized account but shares related news as it is received from these “official” accounts. Although the older generations may receive the message on a new movie because of a television advertisement.   

What is the brand strategy being used by the underdog?

On the other hand, Detective Comics (or more widely known as DC) applies a reactive strategy and waits for Marvel to release a few movies to then present a story that has already struck a chord with Marvel fans or has already been done previous in the movie lineup. But DC fans seem to be content with the copycat corporation – who even copies themself. Although they do not totally mimic Marvel superheroes, they still add their twist, which is dark, grim, and gritty content. For example, Quicksilver from the MCU had made his debut in 2014 and Flash has been in DC movies since 1990. Although that’s the case, Marvel has backed away from promoting the version of their product to leave freedom in the market for the consumers that are established in Flash’s brand. Another example is Batman. Unsurprisingly, Marvel does have a very similar character and storyline to DC’s Batman with Nighthawk. However, Marvel Studios LLC has yet to play with their imagination on this one. Likely because Batman has already hit the widest possible market size and attempting to gain customers through desperation is not a viable strategy. This allows the reactive strategy to commence.

How can the underdog improve its strategy so that it can gain more market share and surpass the top dog?

Provide Three Recommendations

1. Relatability: Marvel gives a sense of hope with the humanized origin and DC reflects on the likes of Superman, Flash, and Aquaman- giving them an option to hide as ordinary people while being an on call hero. So, it is there job to be a superhero. Where Marvel features unique storylines in their craft that reels in an ordinary human to perform extraordinary needs, DC offers similar stories with more character depth that cannot be streamlined to a fan’s background. Not everyone is a billionaire’s orphan son avenging the city that killed his father. But everyone can be in space with yelling goats. The idea is on expanding beyond what is known to what could be known.
2. Consistency: Plots should be consistent and not like a gallery of rough drafts. Every DC movie I have seen, is based on a different plotline with a different background. So, the fresh outlook to the character gives a new understanding and essentially leaves the consumers asking themselves… “what if they stopped making a hundred new stories and pick the most likely according to consumers and just ran with it.?” I know I would like to see Red Son, a communist Superman battling the universe one or more heroes at a time.
3. Brand Inversion: DC is already doing a decent job in stepping up to the plate to identify what they are capable of. “DC’s list is a group of rather exceptional but incredibly evil characters. (Daniels, 2013).” Again, Red Son is a perfect example of this idea. Maybe even turning the bad guys good, establishing a multiverse-like scenario or an expansive universe, where interconnecting the world is done in an unforeseen way. If Warner Brothers would allow DC’s directors to roam free on their projects, there is likely greater consumer-oriented success.

Why do you believe consumers prefer the top dog over the underdog?

When a product is lived-in and associated in society for so many years, relationships are developed through emotional connection. Because Marvel has taken the opportunity to make these movies and merchandise, and bring up their characters in different forms, many more customers are able to jump on board with understanding their human form throughout the years.

Which do you prefer, and why?

Marvel, of course!

From every Marvel movie that has come out in the last four years, I have seen every single one in theatres. The main reason why I keep going back is the end-of-credits sneak peeks for the newest upcoming movie. In my consumer opinion, keeping an audience engaged by showing them what they want but cannot have yet, grounds my intrigue for the next chapter.

References:

Daniels, E. (2013, July 23). 5 reasons why marvel is better than DC – the hollywood news. The Hollywood News. Retrieved December 4, 2022, from https://www.thehollywoodnews.com/2013/07/23/5-reasons-why-marvel-is-better-than-dc/

Statement, M. (2021, February 22). Marvel mission statement 2022: Marvel Mission & Vision Analysis. Mission Statement. Retrieved December 3, 2022, from https://mission-statement.com/marvel-mission/#:~:text=Marvel%20%28MCU%29%20mission%20statement%20To%20expand%20enables%20our,in%20unexpected%20ways.%20To%20resonate%20with%20people%20today.