Disney benefits from Marvel

Speaking of intangible assets, here is another story on company’s assets — this case, Disney and Marvel comics from the IP Value blog (“Disney’s release of Marvel’s The Avengers will begin an informative case study on IP as a value-driver“).

With today’s [Friday May 4th] U.S. introduction of the film, Marvel’s The Avengers, we will see the Disney hydra-headed marketing machine in action.

Tying the Marvel name to the movie title is working. Almost all of the movie theaters and web move-time-listings services are adding the Marvel name to the title of the movie;
Licensees are lining up, from the logical (Hasbro,) to the not-so-likely, Wyndham and Harley Davidson;
Disney expects licensing revenues to exceed box-office revenues (a look into ktMINE, the license and royalty rate database, reveals 9 pre-Disney Marvel licensing agreements with an average royalty rate of a hefty 8.3% of net sales);
International sales are expected to set records.

Disney paid $4.2 billion for Marvel. We will see how quickly and much that investment pays off. Already in its weekend debut, the film broke box office records and is predicted to gross over $1 billion in global box office sales. Disney clearly recognized that Marvel was an addition to its asset base that could be used to could be used to leverage its existing assets — and be leveraged by them.

Read more at The Intangible economy