The product and strategy of Cirque du Soleil

The product and strategy of Cirque du Soleil

“We are not a product company, we are an artistic works company.” said Mario D’ Amico, the executive vice president of marketing in Cirque du Soleil. Cirque du Soleil launched a whole new approach of circus, called “New American Circus”. This new approach is mixture of circus arts and street entertainment, that means the Cirque du Soleil combines street performers, clowns, acrobats and gymnasts. However, as mentioned by the employee of Cirque du Soleil, Cirque was first and foremost a circus without animals, which is the main difference when comparing with other circus. The music of Cirque du Soleil was in a Latin-sounding language that transcends cultural boundaries and top scale production and lighting.

The lifecycle strategy of Cirque du Soleil is quite clear and efficient, it was firstly formed in 1984 by a troupe of street performers, and was doing street performers’ festival in a small town outside Quebec City. Kara Pendleton wrote in her article The History of Cirque Du Soleil: Dazzling Human Circus and More: What began as stilt-walkers known in Quebec, Canada as ‘The High Heels Club’ in the early 1980s, slowly evolved over time to include acts such as jugglers and fire-blowers. By 1984 it was officially named ‘Cirque du Soleil’ after multiple acts which met at festivals decided to all come together under the same big top to perform. After being opened in Quebec, the Cirque du Soleil went on tours in the mid-1990s. Cirque had tried to manage three divisions at first, but eventually the management was centered only at Montreal, and the circus went on North American Tour first. After establishing reputation in North America, Cirque du Soleil expanded its tours to Europe and Asian. Up to now, Cirque du Soleil has been
developed as permanent shows.

The pricing strategy of Cirque du Soleil is successful. The price is targeting in upper middle class families (Avg. North American ticket price is $55 per person.) without any discount or free entrance for children. Cirque provides more sophisticated entertainment and higher qualified shows, which leads to higher prices of tickets than average. Even so, the shows tickets of Cirque du Soleil are generally sold out.

Additionally, the partner strategy that Cirque built up with MGM also makes it reach great success. As Margaret Heffernan said in her article Cirque du Soleil and MGM Mirage: A lesson in Strategic Partnership: The two companies go on a lot of dates and vacations together. By the time they seal the knot, they know each other well, and appreciate each other’s differences. They also, often, have good pre-nups in place: a clear path for resolving disputes. Delivering Superior Performances

Cirque du Soleil uses a vertical coordination structure to support the casts to deliver superior performances.
All management centered at Montreal Headquarter, and organization built around the charismatic leader – Guy Laliberte, who set most of strategic vision and has create an environment for creative people to come here from all over the world and be creative. Since shows are conceived and designed in Montreal, but the headquarter is sometimes distant from the touring group, directors have to visit and check the show is being performed as designed. This approach could protect the brand of Cirque du Soleil and guard the concept of its shows. Moreover, each tour consists of artists, as well as supporting staff, such as conductors, technical employees, management, and marketing or sales persons. The headquarter on the top deliver superior performance: starting from human capital management – hiring the right people, investing in the people, to promoting diversity.

Murielle Cantin, the casting director for Cirque du Soleil, know that Cirque grows by providing growth to artist. So she builds successful teams by selecting people who support each other, mutual interdependence. And she
encourages the artists to grow by learning from each other, borrowing from different art forms, and performing in a multi-cultural environment. Except that, Cirque du Soleil develops trust, openness and deep friendships between team members.

Additionally, Cirque provided lavish food, transportation, close-knit environment and sense of belonging to keep artists motivated and happy. Showing cares and concerns for artists, and providing a stable environment on tour would let artists focus on being creative, and then let the shows keep attractive. Like Daniel Taylor, Managing Director of Metro Design Consultants comments: “The office environment says a lot about a business and can give clues as to how professional it is, and the general attitude of staff and management. A thoughtfully-designed space, with attention to the ergonomic details, will no doubt rub off on employees, helping to make them more proficient and hence more valuable to the business.” Challenges to continued growth

Cirque du Soleil is a major player in the entertainment industry. Although it is providing innovation through its best form and delivering unique performances to its customers, there are still some challenges that Cirque du Soleil has to cope.

I believe that one of the most important challenges that Cirque du Soleil has to face is to be loyal to its global citizenship principles which are based on establishing arts, business and social initiatives that can contribute to making a better world. Apart from that, Cirque du Soleil has to face the challenge of continuing with international expansion while offering its creators the freedom to dream the wildest dreams and make them come true as well as maintaining its social programs. Moreover, it has to take into account economic crisis. The actual crisis situation that is present worldwide can result in two different consequences. The first one would be a drop of revenues because circus spectacles can be seen as a luxury good that is only affordable as an extra. In this case, Cirque du Soleil will have to create new strategies to deal with the problems like modifying tickets’ prices, offering special packs with discounts or other aspects that enable people to keep going to the circus but ensuring the same high quality performances.

The second one is that in crisis times people wants to forget all their problems and in that sense, Cirque du Soleil can provide them the possibility to dream and to be involved in a magic world in where problems are not present for a while. In this case, it will maintain the profits that will enable it to innovate in the creation of new performances, offering the best quality and having the possibility to increase its socials projects. Therefore, depending on the consequences of the economic crisis Cirque du Soleil will be required to establish one strategy or another one but without forgetting its main core competences: ?make people dream? and be social responsible in contributing to a better world.

I think that cirque du Soleil can face the possible challenges of the future by being innovative and. I believe that if they keep working as today, they will be able to overcome all the difficult situations that may appear in the future because it has several competitive advantages that differentiate it from its competitors: the talent of its workers; the creativity, originality and high quality of its shows and its social responsible conviction.

References
Kara Pendleton(2007), The History of Cirque Du Soleil: Dazzling Human Circus and More. Yahoo Contributor Network, retrieved September 15, 2013, from: http://voices.yahoo.com/the-history-cirque-du-soleil-dazzling-human-circus-756417.html?cat=37 Margaret Heffernan (2013), Cirque du Soleil and MGM Mirage: A Lesson in Strategic Partnership. Inc.com, retrieved September 15, 2013, from: http://www.inc.com/margaret-heffernan/strategic-partnership-cirque-du-soleil-mgm-mirage.html Daniel Taylor (2010, December 28), Office Environment Key To Staff Motivation. Financial Times. pp. 3B.