Time Warner Marketing Strategy & Marketing Mix (4Ps)

Published in Services category by MBA Skool Team

Marketing Strategy of Time Warner analyzes the brand with the marketing mix framework which covers the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). These business strategies, based on Time Warner marketing mix, help the brand succeed in the market. Let us start the Time Warner Marketing Strategy & Mix to understand its product, pricing, advertising & distribution strategies:

Time Warner Product Strategy:

The product strategy and mix in Time Warner marketing strategy can be explained as follows:

Time Warner is a leading global entertainment company serving worldwide. Time Warner’s business is broadly divided into three divisions and hence its products.

The HBO is premium television services under two brands HBO and Cinemax. Time Warner has products which are available in traditional and non-traditional platforms. The products majorly consist of drama series, comedy content, sports content, documentaries and other specialized music content. With changing trends and upgrading technologies it is trying to cater to on demand video streaming platforms such HBO NOW, MAX GO and HBO GO services.

The Turner Inc. division provides cable television services and other entertainment products. The brands under the parent division are TNT, TBS, Adult Swim, truTV, Cartoon Network, CNN, HLN, Boomerang, Turner Sports and Turner Classic Movies.

These channels of Time Warner provide entertainment, sports, news and kids programs on various online offline platforms. The cable division provides network for television, online streaming and mobile devices viewing. It has also got digital properties such as bleacherreport.com and CNN digital network.

The Warner Bros. division caters to the television and feature film network. The products under the business broadly consists of feature films, video games products, brand licensing, production house for television programming and also providing entertainment in both digital and traditional formats. All these gives an insight in the product strategy in its marketing mix.


Image: Wikimedia


Time Warner Price/Pricing Strategy:

Below is the pricing strategy in Time Warner marketing strategy:

Time Warner follows various pricing strategies as the entertainment business has become quite competitive in recent times. It charges lower prices for basic cable services and higher prices for the premium services which is a kind of freemium pricing strategy in its marketing mix.

As the entertainment business is quite competitive it has to keep prices as par to the competitors. Time Warner also uses the strategy of lower introductory offers and raising prices after gaining popularity. The strategy is typically targeted to gain more revenue from existing customers rather than acquiring new customers which costs more to the company. Time Warner also has offers where the customers are lured to buy packages of longer durations hence locking the customer for longer duration and gaining more revenue.

Time Warner Place & Distribution Strategy:

Following is the distribution strategy in the Time Warner marketing mix:

Time Warner has customers which are present globally and is present in almost 200 countries. The company reaches the customers by the help of ground networks via cable systems and also through air via satellite services. Time Warner also reaches the customers with the help of telephone services and even third party distributors. The digital products are distributed by the third party distribution channels. It also sells its digital formats and video streaming services via many third party video on demand services such as Hotstar, Amazon Prime services etc.

Time Warner also has formed joint ventures in overseas countries for distributions in the countries it currently does not have access.


Time Warner Promotion & Advertising Strategy:

The promotional and advertising strategy in the Time Warner marketing strategy is as follows:

Time Warner has mainly online strategies and advertisement strategies through TV commercials. Time Warner promotes the products through the TV channels where it promotes the new programs which are coming up to create awareness and also in the way subscribe to the products to access the programs. Since the quality of programs are good they subscribe to the channels. Time Warner also tie up with various sports events which gains them visibility. Even the distributors are offered discounts based upon the volumes of subscribers they bring which also increases their visibility among distributors. Time Warner also features various popular characters like Batman, Flash and other DC comic superheroes which are very much popular among the crowds and hence attracts crowds across the globe.


Since this is a service marketing brand, here are the other three Ps to make it the 7Ps marketing mix of Time Warner.


People:

Time Warner employs 24,800 employs who are employed across the globe which have a very good cultural mix and good representations from women too. Employees of Time Warner are provided an inclusive environment so that they feel like corporate citizens and go through a lot of trainings for improving their skills. Time Warner also provides leaderships trainings so that it can prepare its employees to become future managers. It has also tied up with various renowned b schools for various executive development programs. Further to support employees it gives chance for internal mobility so that they can make better careers. Time Warner also takes constant feedback through third party companies to get an unbiased view of the employee satisfaction.


Process:

Time Warner is a major in the media and entertainment business and since the environment is quite competitive it has to strive for giving the best user experience. With the advancement of internet technologies it is also developing products which cater to the way people want to consume entertainment. Time Warner also using data analytics to make the advertisements on its channels more attractive and also the product offerings. It is further investing in technology to create new ecosystem for video watching with non-traditional viewing devices. To make video streaming seamless it has also invested in cloud services. Time Warner also provides the programs in various local languages to cater to the local crowd and gain popularity.


Physical Evidence:

The services of Time Warner can be accessed easily through various devices including the traditional television viewing. The online content can be viewed on many third party video on demand services provider. The various home entertainment programs and films are also available in physical format across various stores. Time Warner also provides its video game services via physical and digital formats. Since the media and entertainment business is inflicted with piracy, capturing the market is difficult. With the strict rules by the regulatory bodies piracy is controlled to great extent but now video on demand and other online platforms are becoming more popular. The movies produced by Time Warner can be viewed in the theatres. Hence, this gives an insight in the marketing mix of Time Warner.


About Time Warner:

Time Warner is a media and entertainment business based in America. It was founded by Steve Ross in 1990 which happened with merger of Time Inc and Warner Communications.

Time Warner is focused to provide high quality video content and incorporate new technologies to cater to the changing customer needs. The company is headquartered in New York City and serves the customer present worldwide Time Warner has third highest revenue in the entertainment business after Comcast and Walt Disney which is around $30 billion and operating income was around $7 billion annually.

This article has been researched & authored by the Content & Research Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

Browse marketing strategy and 4Ps analysis of more brands similar to Time Warner. The Marketing Strategy & Mix section covers 4Ps and 7Ps of more than 800 brands in 2 categories.

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The names and other brand information used in the Marketing Strategy & Mix section are properties of their respective companies. The companies are not associated with MBA Skool in any way.

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