I took my almost-four-year-old son to his first big screen movie on the weekend—Ratatouille. This is another five-star offering from Pixar; eight in a row by my count. I think I have seen the other seven Pixar films (Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monster's Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Cars) a couple of dozen times each on DVD. Whether animation is your thing or not, these are truly great films with original stories and loveable characters voiced by incredible actors.
The talented team at Pixar know how to make a movie. Creative team lead, John Lasseter, has been quoted as saying, "we make movies we want to watch ourselves." And, in my opinion, Brad Bird, the writer/director of Ratatouille and The Incredibles is one of the most-talented filmmakers of all time. With a 18-month to two-year window between films, Pixar's strategy is obviously quality versus quantity.
Pixar's main competitor is DreamWorks Animation SKG with movies that include Antz, Shrek, Shrek 2, Shrek 3, Sharktale, Madagascar, Over the Hedgeand Flushed Away. These are good movies, but not Pixar great.
CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, has stated they are in the quantity game. They crank out two films per year. To make a scene better, the powers that be at DreamWorks just have one of the characters kick another in the crotch!
Both companies are successful. Both companies make a ton of money. They have different strategies.
So, I always like to bring my wayward posts back to the credit union industry. Is your credit union's strategy quantity or quality? For members? For products? For branch locations? For services? How does your strategy compare to your bank and credit union competitors? Do you know?
A few questions certainly worth asking yourselves.
Tim