Many free business models are based upon advertising while others are based on direct exchange of services. You do something for me and in return I’ll do something for you. Everybody happy! This new approach by Disney combines both methods. In order to get free publicity they are encouraging people to do volunteer work with the Handson Network. When someone gives a few hours of his precious time to such a good cause, Disney will give that volunteer a free visit at on of its theme parks. Visitors of Disney Land or Walt Disney World will admit that this is truly a unique experience. The return Disney receives is off course a better reputation and that without the need to spend big advertising budgets.disney-free-visitWhile more and more charity based business concepts do pop-up, we see that only few of them use it in this fundamental new way. Most of the time a company only promises to donate a part of the profit to charity. By doing this they hope to convince people to buy more goods. All the ‘RED’ products use this method: Charity as a sticker. But in this Disney case there is no direct money involved and that is not a problem at all! Disney is a marketing company, one that sells brand reputation. So anything that can strengthen their reputation will be directly linked to higher profits elsewhere. If you’re a simple product seller you can’t rely directly on such a concept since you don’t have other revenue streams. Maybe in that case a ‘Buy one, give one’-concept will be a more sustainable way of using ‘charity’.

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Posted on October 10, 2009 in Entertainment & tourism, Non-profit & public