Title: THE MARKETING STRATEGY OF DISNEY+ HOTSTAR IN INDIA

Abstract
The OTT platform also known as the over the top media service is an
all important source of entertainment for the people nowadays.
India currently is one of the biggest markets for the OTT platforms
like Netflix, Amazon prime, Disney plus hotstar and many others.
Right now it is one of the most important sources of entertainment
for the people and with the growth of Internet services this has
became a revolution in the entertainment industry. Disney plus hot
star is by far one of the leaders of this platform in India. Not only it is
having the largest number of subscribers but it also has a large
number of services or shows to be offered for its customers.
According to the media reports, Disney plus hot star is having over 50
million subscribers currently which is by far the largest number of
subscribers among its competitors. This research paper will analyse
the marketing strategies namely the 4P analysis as developed by
Edmund Jerome McCarthy.
The paper would like to throw some light on the products that the
platform is offering, the pricing strategy which is used by them, how
it is reaching its customers and the promotional strategies used by
this platform.
Introduction
Star India launched the hotstar app on 11 February 2015 as a
platform for Indian customers offering high quality contents like
exclusive shows, cricket matches, international shows and movies. By
2019 it was quite famous and during the Indian Premier League of
2019 it broke the records of viewership setting a new global record
of 18.6 million. When Star India was acquired by Walt Disney Co in
2019, hot star was also acquired by Walt Disney and they changed
the name of the platform to Disney plus hot star. But the change in
ownership hardly affected the success story of this platform. Disney
plus hotstar is right now one of the most successful OTT platforms
with large number of subscribers and a huge viewership. As per
reports of business-standard.com (May 2022) ,Disney plus hot star is
currently having 50 million paid subscribers which is by far the
largest among all the OTT platforms in India. Any business that grows
like this must have good marketing strategies which needed to be
analysed in this report we will look into the 4P analysis of Disney plus
hotstar in India.
4P analysis
Marketing is one of the most important factors that contribute
towards the growth of business. Marketing of a product makes it
available to its customers and causes its sales. Without proper
marketing strategy a business house won’t be able to increase its
sales and revenue. It is one of the basic factors that contribute
towards the success of an organisation.
Four P is a part of the marketing mix analysis of a business. Edmund
Jerome McCarthy proposed this concept in his 1960 book Basic
Marketing which has been one of the most important textbooks for
marketing courses in the world. Organisations use this as their
marketing strategies by mixing the four Ps which include Pricing
strategy, product, promotional strategies and placement of the
product which is the distribution strategy. The 4P analysis makes
study of the Pricing, Promotion, Product and Place strategy adopted
by the business organisations and links it to their success or failure
In this paper we will be throwing light on these four important
marketing mix strategies of the most successful OTT platform Disney
plus hot star in India.
Product
Disney plus hot star provides a wide range of products which attracts
and retains its customer. It has a huge variety of products which are
offered to the public or subscribers. The products include the
following types
1. Movies: Disney plus hot star provides a wide range of Indian as
well as international movies. It has created different types of
genres like Action movies, drama some of the well known
movies round the world. They provide Comedy movies, kids
movies, thriller, romantic, exclusive biopic and documentaries,
the entire superhero marvel movies, short movies, Bollywood
and Regional Indian movies for their subscribers. The movies
are all in HD quality which provides a good watching
experience for the customers. The regional movies are also
available with subtitles in Hindi as well as English so that the
consumers don't have any problem in understanding them.
One of the biggest strength of this platform is that they are
continuously adding new movies into their collection and which
are all exclusively for their subscribers.
2. TV shows: One of the biggest game changer for Disney plus hot
star is its TV shows. They have a wide range of TV shows to be
offered for their subscribers which includes superhero shows
mostly from marvel series, HBO original shows like Game of
Thrones soprano’s etc, Star World shows, star plus Hindi and
regional shows, National Geographic shows and some of their
own exclusive shows. The TV show category is very famous and
popular among the young generation especially for the Marvel
superhero series and the HBO originals which were previously
not available in any platforms in India. Apart from this the star
shows in Hindi and Regional language mostly the daily shows
soaps are a household favourite for the middle aged generation
in India
3. Sports: One of the biggest game changes for Disney plus
hot star proved to be the Indian Premier League in 2019
which broke records of viewership. It has a wide variety of
sports
 shows available which involves live sports events like Indian
and International cricket shows, football shows all over the
world including the most famous English Premier League ,the
Formula One racing shows, hockey leagues and international
tournaments, martial arts events all across the world , All India
tennis tournaments, Wimbledon and popular tennis matches.
Apart from this they also involve coverage of American rugby,
athletic tournaments all across the world involving the great
Olympics and golf tournaments. The sports category is one of
the most important ingredients in the success story of Disney
plus hot star. Their coverage is very wide and it is also one of
the most unique factors that distinguish it from other
platforms. Its immediate competitors like Netflix ,Amazon
prime have so far no such sporting coverage in this category.
They have only one competition from Sony Liv who are
currently broadcasting sports in their OTT platform.
4. Exclusive shows Disney plus hot star provides some of the most
exclusive shows for its Indian customers which are available
only in this platform and nowhere else. They named this
category as hotstar special and it has also been one of the most
successful categories in their products after sports. Shows like
Special OPS, Hostages, Criminal Justice are a household name
nowadays. The exclusive shows have been one of the prime
attractions of this platform and also one of the reasons for the
large number of subscribers.
Price
The pricing strategy adopted by Disney plus hot star is quite
competitive it is lower compared to its immediate competitors like
that of Amazon prime and Netflix but higher than Zee 5 and Sony
liv. it follows a competitive pricing policy. Within a price range of
899 a year subscribers a wide range of entertainment options
she's not provided. It has also divided it's subscription plans into
 two parts she’s Disney hotstar premium and Disney hot star super,
the premium plan cost around 1499 a year and it includes a lot of
additional services without any advertisements disturb its
streaming. The premium plan also provides resolution 5.1 support
which makes it what is money. The basic plan or the Super plan
comes at a price tag of 899 a year install the original series movies
sports and allows its streaming in HD quality. This competitive
pricing strategy has proved to be one of the key players the
success story of Disney plus hot star compared to its competitors.
Disney plus hot star has proved to be a platform that provides a
huge range of entertainment services at the very attractive price.
The Super plan also can be used on two screens at the same time
that is two devices can use it at the same time with one single
subscription, while the premium plan allows four devices at the
same time. This sharing of the screen makes it more attractive and
affordable by the consumers. It has also offered plans with Jio
recharge where a prepaid and post paid Jio customer can enjoy
Disney+ Hotstar with their prepaid recharges.
Pricing
Yearly Monthly Weekly
Plan cost Cost
Disney+
Hoststar 899 74.92 17.29
Amazon
Prime 1499 124.92 28.83
Netflix 1788 149 34.38
Sony Liv 999 83.25 19.21
Zee 5 999 83.25 19.21
 Yearly Plan
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600 Yearly Plan
400
200
0

Disney+ Amazon NetflixSony Liv Zee 5

Promotion:
Disney plus hotstar uses targeting strategy in order to have the
support of its loyal customers. They have gone for rigorous
advertisements in social media platforms like Facebook YouTube
and many others. All this Star channels like star plus, star movies
,star world continuously play the advertisements of the shows and
movies that are available in the Disney plus hotstar platform.
They provide the best quality video for their customers. In order
to fulfil their digital consumption desire. Sales promotion tools
like, discounts on subscription plan, high quality videos at nominal
price are provided. Advertisement of the Exclusive shows, sports
events, movies are well circulated in social media platforms as
well as television. This rigorous promotion strategy adopted by
this platform makes it quite reachable to its customers. Nowadays
they are also putting up road side hoardings as a tool to let the
people know about their shows and telecasts.
Place/ Distribution:
Disney plus hotstar is the most easily services and available
platform. In Google Play store. Availability in Google Play store
makes it easily downloadable and installed across different
Smartphone, Smart Tv and tablet devices. It is also available in
apple stores which make it easily installable in apple devices also.
This type of distribution strategy makes the platform to be easily
available to which customers’. The customers won't have any
difficulty in finding this app across any platform on searching him
such availability of a product makes it more successful as
customers don't have to spend time in searching it. Allowing
streaming on more than one device at the same time is also one
of the best strategies that they have come up with. This also
increases their distribution across different devices and people.

Conclusion
Disney+ Hostar is currently the most used entertainment App
(Application) in India. It is not only a market leader but also shows
the power of marketing. It is atrue example of the fact that if a
product is launched with proper marketing strategies then it is
sure to get success in the long run. The covid era has also been
one of the major causes for the increase in this OTT platforms
since during that lockdown period people were mostly engaged
with this type of shows and platforms. Disney+ Hotstar also
captured and grabbed that opportunity with both hands and
increased their subscribers. Even though this market is highly
competitive by Disney+ hotstar with their strong marketing mix
strategies are able to maintain their market leader status.
They have strong product which they constantly upgrade with
new shows, movies and most importantly live sports telecasts.
Their pricing (as discussed earlier) is one of the cheapest among
their competitors. The promotional strategies are also a key
 ingredient as they are constantly increasing their advertisements
and also coming up with discounts and offers for Indian public.
The placement of the products is also very well placed as it can be
easily downloaded anywhere and installed. Their collaborations
with Vi and Jio telecommunication services (subscription with
recharges) is also a masterstroke in placing their products easily
with the customers. According to the reports of statista.com the
annual revenue of Disney+ Hotstar in India was 16.7 Billion Indian
rupees for the financial year 2021. At present (May 2022) it has
already achieved the milestone of 50 million subscribers owing to
which we can expect it revenue to be much higher than the
previous financial year. With the help of 4P analysis this article has
tried to throw some light into the marketing strategies of the giant
that can help us to understand the power of marketing and also
make us realise the best marketing strategy for the OTT platforms
in India.

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Keywords:
 OTT: OTT stands for “Over The Top” and refers to any
streaming service that delivers content over the internet
 Subscribers: A subscriber is a person who pays to receive a
product or service, for example a magazine or website.
 Marketing: Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and
processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and
exchanging offerings that have value for customers,
clients, partners, and society at large.
 Biopic: a film based on the life of a famous person, esp one
giving a popular treatment.
 Marketing Mix: The marketing mix refers to the set of actions,
or tactics, that a company uses to promote its brand or
product in the market. The 4Ps make up a typical marketing
mix - Price, Product, Promotion and Place.