India's digital shift is forcing Disney to think bespoke: Asad Ayaz

Asad Ayaz, Chief brand officer of The Walt Disney Company

The Walt Disney Company, one of the world’s most storied entertainment companies, has been battling dark clouds on a number of fronts over the past few years—declining footfalls at its theme parks, plummeting stock prices, and an anti-woke backlash—but the House of Mouse is confident of retaining its mojo with creative storytelling.

“The films we've had in 2024 and the success we've had this year really speaks to the need to have creative excellence. That is what matters,” said Asad Ayaz, the chief brand officer of The Walt Disney Company, and president, marketing, The Walt Disney Studios and Disney+. Ayaz was speaking to Indian journalists at the D23 Expo, Disney’s biennial fan convention in Anaheim, California, home to the first ever Disneyland.

In 2023, The Marvels, which had three women as its leads, had the franchise’s worst opening weekend at the box office—some attributed it to Disney’s attempts at social and political messaging. Meanwhile, Florida governor Ron DeSantis had also attacked Disney, dubbing it ‘woke’, as an offshoot of his legal feuds with the company [the two parties have since settled the dispute]. Asked about the anti-woke brigade and if Disney intended to rethink its messaging, Ayaz insisted that fans are looking at films and shows that deliver creatively. “That is the answer,” he said. “If you look at Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, if you look at Inside Out 2, or Deadpool & Wolverine, a wild, crazy R-rated movie, people love these characters as they are full of surprises. That speaks to our creative approach going forward.”

The Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman-starrer Marvel superhero flick Deadpool & Wolverine grossed about $925 million worldwide ahead of its third weekend, and was expected to breach the $1 billion-mark post it—in India, it earned about Rs115 crore, overtaking Fast X and Furious 7 and inching towards overhauling the collections of Mission Impossible: Dead reckoning Part One (Rs120 crore).
Pixar’s Inside Out 2, on the other hand, which was released in June, has already become the highest-grossing animated film of all time, earning $1.46 billion worldwide (till July), surpassing superhit Frozen II. The two movies from the Disney stable are also the only ones this year to cross the hallowed $1 billion benchmark in collections. 

“Some of our greatest successes, Avengers: Endgame, Avatar: The Way of Water, have been sensational in India. In the future, with our movies across all of our brands, there's tremendous opportunity, not to mention the opportunity in animation the success of Inside Out 2 has shown,” says Ayaz. 

The company’s first-ever chief brand office, who is in charge of managing the Disney brand globally, reiterated the company’s creative push when asked if the entertainment behemoth’s falling stock prices would impact its marketing strategies. Last August, Disney’s stocks closed at $82.47, a nine-year low, and down from an all-time high of $201.91 in 2021 [it closed at $86.21 on August 9]. “Our marketing strategy is based on what the audience wants. It’s very much driven by the creative, it’s very much driven by the content slate, because that's what defines our brand,” he said.

One of the most dominant patterns of consumption in India is the shift to digital and social media, Ayaz says further. “While that is something we’re seeing everywhere where there is censorship, in some ways, India has been ahead of that in a lot of ways. And it’s not just the younger generation anymore–the shift to consumption of short-form, user-generated content, is [universal and the] the biggest change,” he said.

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According to a January 2024 report by DataReportal, there were 462 million social media users in India, amounting to 32.2 percent of its total population. This rise in digital consumption in the world’s most populous country has been propelled by cost-effective data plans, with an internet penetration of 52.4 percent, says the report.  “What this shift means for us,” he adds, “is that we have to develop a creative that is bespoke not just to the local culture and local taste but also to the platforms themselves.”

How does Disney, a global behemoth with a market cap of over $156 billion, craft such bespoke content? By working with local teams to explore an opportunity—be it a sequel, a local language production or an adaptation of an older property in the local language. “But the creative always leads the conversation,” said Ayaz.

To connect with the fandom at a local level, Disney is taking the D23 to Brazil in November, the convention’s first full-fledged foray into a geography beyond the US, and Star Wars Celebration, a D23-style event for the franchise, to Tokyo next April. “We are going to learn so much over the next few months from these events. So, absolutely, there's an opportunity for us to do something in India.”

(The author is at the D3 Expo in Anaheim, California on the invitation of Disney)