WWE: A Business Insight (WWE in General)

Member Name: cognition

Product:	WWE in General
Date:	26/11/08 (255 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reaches many market segments, powerful distribution network and marketing machine

Disadvantages: WWE are trying to take advantage of digital media. It is crucial that they are successful.

The acronym WWE stands for World Wrestling Entertainment and is a privately controlled entertainment company based in America. The company was founded in 1952, and the focus of this business is 'professional wrestling', which is a simulated sport. Actors, or stunt men, or whatever you wish to call them, get up on stage and put on a realistic fight, but it has all been rehearsed to the very smallest detail.

WWE is all about business, and business is good! WWE organized an international tour November 2008 which grossed more than £9.7 million! Shows were sold out in the UK, France, Germany and Belgium!

In terms of target audience, the WWE has a massive span. You might think that most wrestling fans are men, but in fact 35.4% of the WWE fan base are female. Age distribution is surprisingly even with 15.6% fans of ages up to 11. 20.5% fans in the age 12-24, 15.1% fans in the age group 25-34, 23.1% fans in the age group 35-49 and 24.7% fans in the age of 50 and above. The corporation is even targeting children directly through a 'WWE Kids' web site separate to the normal WWE web site. There is even a monthly "WWE Kids Magazine" which you can subscribe to. This might not be so shocking knowing that 79% of current fans were introduced to WWE before the age of 12.

According to the WWE Corporate Overview, the basis of the WWE business model is Content Creation, Marketing and Distribution.

In order to expand the WWE brand into the digital domain, the WWE are putting measure into increasing traffic to their web sites, even launching a community site (WWE Fan Nation) and attracting new advertisers for cross-platform deals. WWE Mobile is another effort. Wireless Video services are rising in popularity, and WWE Mobile takes advantage of this by offfering exclusive content through mobile platforms.

Merchandising has been a top seller for WWE, and licensing deals has lead to WWE action figures, video games, books, as well as the company's own DVDs and magazines.

The company's current priorities include continued exploitation of the internet and digital media, as well as international expansion efforts.

WWE is a solid machine, and it seems like nothing can break it down. A possible threat to the company is the competition of digital entertainment, which the company is trying to break into, as well as digital piracy, although the WWE have the advantage of having acquired a mass audience of hardcore fans, and they continue to do so by gaining fans at a young age and turning them into life long WWE supporters.

Information for this review was found in the WWE Overview Report, as found on the WWE Corporate web site.

Summary: WWE might be bigger than you think?