• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, June 10, 2019

Some consumers already want Walt Disney’s new forthcoming OTT service, Disney+ — although they don’t know what it is.

Just over one quarter (27%) of respondents have awareness of the Disney+ service — 45% of 18- to-24-year-olds and 36% of households with children, per research from an Ampere Analysis survey conducted with 1,003 internet users via mobile phone.

Another 22% of respondents said they are “likely” or “highly likely” to subscribe.

The group that contains children can be particularly important for Disney — especially considering its wide range of TV and film content for all consumers, young and old. Adding to this mix movie and TV content — mostly older-skewing — from its acquisition of the Fox business.

What does this mean for the market overall? Skeptics might say this means about three-quarters of entertainment consumers in the U.S. are not aware of or not interested in Disney+.

To be fair, this survey comes with no consumer marketing from Disney.

No doubt the Disney name carries a lot of brand weight. If the same question were asked of NBCUniversal or WarnerMedia for upcoming OTT platform efforts, would you get the same results?

Corporate entertainment brand-name marketing can be tricky. Think about those big TV network names — NBC, CBS, Fox, or ABC. Do we know what those networks' brands really mean to consumers?

Viewers might identify specific program genres for certain brands. Does NBC still mean comedy for viewers? CBS has a lot of crime procedural dramas. Is that its brand identity? Do emotionally charged family dramas speak to ABC’s viewers?

In the 1990s, ABC’s “TV is Good” campaign ambitiously tried to push a tongue-in-cheek effort to promote TV overall. NBC also did a memorable marketing push with “Must See TV” in the 1990s, specifically for its comedies.

Cable networks are different, but changing. We quickly have an idea about MTV, Discovery, Food Network, and Fox News Channel. Still, some channels are morphing into other areas.

In this new age, however, there are major new players with different marketing efforts — Netflix, Amazon and Hulu (now fully owned by Disney) — on social media, on their own platforms, through electronic program guides, and other media.

So far, much of their premium digital video marketing has centered on TV series such as “Stranger Things” (Netflix), “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (Amazon) and “The Handmaid’s Tale” (Hulu).

Will efforts from traditional TV/film companies mean finding a broader, more complex media marketing voice?

Maybe it's just the bottom line: the monthly price. Is $7.99, $12.99 or $16 a month the key marketing factor?