Disney+ Offers Members $40 Discount on Walmart+ as Streamers Tap Partnerships

With video streaming services increasingly turning to subscription partnerships to drive customer acquisition in the competitive category, Disney+ is offering its customers a Walmart deal.

As SFGate reported, the streaming service is offering subscribers $40 off a one-year membership to the retailer’s subscription offering, which typically costs $98. Plus, Walmart’s site noted that the promotion will continue through Jan. 31 as part of the Disney+ Perks program — a departure from most of the perks on offer, which stay within Disney’s ecosystem.

The big box chain’s subscription includes free grocery delivery, free shipping without having to meet the typical minimum order value and fuel discounts, among other perks.

The move comes as streaming services increasingly tap other subscription partners, both within the industry and beyond, to stand out in the competitive race for customer acquisition. An increasing number of players in the space are offering bundled packages, with Apple and Paramount reportedly in talks to do so. Plus, Disney+ is rolling out a Hulu bundle, according to CNBC.

Meanwhile, Peacock is turning to grocery aggregator Instacart to drive adoption, looking to capture the loyalty of the latter’s audience through a subscription partnership. The eGrocery company announced last month that it was making Premium-level subscriptions to the streaming service available to its Instacart+ members at no additional cost.

Partnerships with financial institutions (FIs) can also go a long way towards driving streaming adoption, according to “Leveraging Item-Level Receipt Data: How Card-Linked Offers Drive Customer Loyalty,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and Banyan collaboration.

The study, which drew from a census-balanced July survey of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers, revealed that of the 85% of respondents who are likely to use a product-specific card-linked offer program, 54% will likely use them in the next three months to purchase subscriptions for digital streaming products.

These moves to drive adoption come as consumers rethink their streaming spending. The PYMNTS Intelligence study “The One-Stop Bill Pay Playbook: Drivers of Consumers’ Bill Payment Priorities,” created in collaboration with Mastercard, which drew from a census-balanced survey of more than 2,100 U.S. consumers, found that when consumers struggle to pay their monthly bills, streaming services are the first to get canceled. Fifty-five percent said they would lose their streaming subscriptions if they needed to reduce the bills they received each month, a greater share than said the same of any other service.

Indeed, many consumers are feeling the subscription fatigue. According to research from last year highlighted in PYMNTS’ Subscription Commerce Tracker®, created in collaboration with Vindicia, 55% of consumers think there are too many streaming options, and 53% find it too expensive to pay for all the content.

Consequently, streaming services have been challenged to get creative, finding new ways to drive adoption. Not only are they partnering with other subscription services and offering card-linked rewards, but also expanding into new areas. Disney+, for its part, is reportedly considering launching gaming and shopping options on its streaming service, and Netflix too has been discussing its intentions to expand its gaming business going forward.