The Walt Disney Company: The Entertainment King
Starting as a young boy from Missouri, farmer Walter Elias Disney set out to make a mark on society. After first joining the Red Cross in World War I, he came back determined to be an artist. After moving to Hollywood in 1923 with his older brother Roy, they founded Disney Brothers Studio. After diversifying as much as possible, Disney had a firm grasp on the global market share until the 1980’s where the company’s revenues began to slump in the film industry. Luckily Sid Bass invested $365 million in order to rescue the company and bring an end to all hostile takeover attempts. Disney’s billion dollar powerhouse status in the entertainment industry can be broken down and analyzed using the
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Walt believed the true revenue lay with full-length feature films. In 1937 Walt Disney and his studio created the world’s first full-length, full-color animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This was the highest-grossing animated movie of all time, even out grossing animated films until the year 2000 (Exhibit 7). Disney Brothers Studio attempted to increase its market share so cleverly in the fact that they began a signature trend of stocking shelves with products the day of the film’s release in huge retail stores such as Sears and Woolworth’s.
To maintain this competitive advantage and market share, Disney set a goal of releasing two feature–length films per year, in addition to a large number of shorts. As the company was skyrocketing in sales and revenue, Disney began to scale up, and employee base grew sevenfold and they even built a new studio in Burbank. In order to finance these new additions, Disney Brothers Studios went public in 1940. World War II was a sluggish time for Disney so in 1944 Disney began another trademark tactic of re-releasing its full-length classic cartoons every few years so as to capture the interest of all the new generations of children. This strategy became an important source of profits for Disney. After the war ended, Disney diversified further by creating Walt Disney Music Company to control music copyrights and to recruit the finest artists. Disney took the diversification strategy to new heights by offering
The name was eventually changed to The Walt Disney Studios. By the end of 1927, the Disney brothers created a total of 56 Alice comedies, which proved Walt as a producer and built up his animation studio that rivaled others in the business. In 1928, their company took a hit when almost all of their animators jumped ship and went to work for Universal Pictures. It was projected that Walt Disney’s animation career was over, but he kept fighting and it taught him to never give up control of his creations. Though the tale of how he came about isn’t clear, Mickey Mouse debuted on November 18, 1928. From that day, the Walt Disney Studios took off with the creation of Snow White in 1937 and Pinocchio and Fantasia in 1940. However, the studio took a break from movies after Pearl Harbor in order to aid in the war effort by converting the studio into a wartime industrial plant. After the war, Disney reconquered the title of leader of animation and rest is history. With the opening of Disneyland and the premiere of The Mickey Mouse Club in 1955, the company has only flourished. In 1963, there was the first use of audio-animatronics at Disneyland and Walt began the foundation of a project that would lead to Disneyworld. However, he was diagnosed with lung cancer in November 1966 and passed in December; therefore, unable to see his plan play out. Walter Elias Disney was a small-town boy who turned into a
Net income increased from $93 million in 1984 to $445 million in 1987, so Disney increased its net income more than four times after Eisner’s takeover in the first four years. Much of this incredible success is due to Eisner’s tough leadership, brand management and his corporate strategies. He not only brought the company back on track, but also made sure, that Disney did not loose its sight in his own corporate values (quality, creativity, entrepreneurship and teamwork) (1, p. 4). Much of Disney’s success in the first four years under Eisner was due to the strategies of simultaneously “managing creativity” and keeping an eye on costs due to well-defined financial objectives (1, p.4). What’s more, Disney
Introduction The Walt Disney Company is an American diversified multinational mass media corporation. It is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. It generated US$ 42.278 billion in 2012. Disney was founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, and established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into live-action film production, television, and travel. The Walt Disney Company operates as five primary units and segments: The Walt Disney Studios or Studio Entertainment, which includes the company's film, recording label, and theatrical divisions; Parks and Resorts, featuring the company's theme
The Walt Disney Company started off on the dreams of one man, Walt Disney. He started the Walt Disney Studios in 1926 to make animated films for children but was not satisfied with his accomplishments. As his motion pictures and television programs became successful, he felt a desire to branch out. One area that intrigued him was amusement parks. As a father, he had taken his children to carnivals and other entertainment enterprises, but he always ended up sitting out the rides while the kids had all the
Walt Disney started out by producing short animated films in 1922 and in 1928 introduced Mickey Mouse, the world most famous cartoon character shown in Figure 4 below (Olsson 1996; Kramer 2002). Following this breakthrough, Kramer (2002) found that Disney proceeded innovatively with new film technologies of sound and colour that resulted in the first successful animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937.
Founded in 1923 by Walter Elias Disney, Walt Disney is the pioneer of the animation industry (“The Walt Disney Company”, 2014). The first two cartoons that Disney created were silent films and could not be sold; he then created the third Mickey Mouse cartoon with sound – Steamboat Willie in November of 1928 ("Disney History," n.d.). Disney went on to win the Academy Award ® for Best Cartoon in 1932, which was the first year that this award was offered, for his cartoon Flowers and Trees ("Disney History," n.d.). Shortly after his cartoons were gaining popularity, Disney went into the merchandising industry, when Walt Disney accepted an offer of $300 by a man to put Mickey Mouse on some pencil tablets ("Disney History," n.d.). That was just the beginning for Disney merchandising, which soon included everything from “Mickey Mouse dolls, dishes,
Introduction: The Walt Disney Company is on the threshold of a new era. Michael Eisner has stepped down from his position as CEO and turned over the reigns to Robert Iger. A lot of turmoil has been brewing through the company over the last four years; many people are hoping that this change in leadership will put Disney back on the road to success. Issues began around mid-2002; when declining earnings, fleeing shareholders, and
When his first feature-length film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came out in 1937, Walt Disney was able to get people to spend the few cents it took to get into the theater for just over an hour of escape. Even though it was the Great Depression, because the movie was the first full length animated film, Walt was able to spend $1,499,000 on the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney began their greatest endeavor in 1923 when they officially founded the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. With their headquarters officially established in Burbank, California they established themselves as the leader in the American animation industry. The most memorable character of the Disney franchise would have to be attributed to their first sound film Steamboat Willie, with its leading character Mickey Mouse (nearly named Mortimer Mouse). With much success and critical acclaim, Disney released its first full length animated film in 1937: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. July 18, 1955 marks the official first day that Disneyland is open to the general public. A year after making a crucial move in establishing
The Walt Disney Company’s rebirth under Michael Eisner was widely considered to be one of the th great turnaround stories of the late 20 century. When Eisner arrived in 1984, Disney was languishing and had narrowly avoided takeover and dismemberment. By the end of 2000, however, revenues had climbed from $1.65 billion to $25 billion under Eisner, while net earnings had risen from $0.1 billion to $1.2 billion (see Exhibit 1). During Eisner’s first 15 years, Disney generated a 27% annual total 1 return to
The birth of Walt Disney Company can be traced back in 1923 where it was founded by Walt Elias Disney as a cartoon studio. The company was initiated in California in the summer holidays with its first animation being about Alice Wonderland, which was made in Kansas City (Sanders, 2015). At those days, the company was identified as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. After four years of adhering to only one cartoon, Alice, Walt Disney decided to release new series of cartoons which started with Oswald cartoon or the 928 when Walt Disney decided to change the character of his cartoon series into a mouse which colloquially identified as The Lucky Rabbit (Sanders, 2015). The recognition of the company was realized back in 1 was named as Mickey Mouse. Although Disney received several criticisms from the film distributors concerning his idea on the Mickey Mouse, the cartoon was marked as the international and the moist popular figure of the days by the New York Times Newspaper (Sanders, 2015). Most of the film distributors believed that the cartoon series from Disney only had the mediocre ability but not until it was performed in theatres and drew the interests of the audience in large numbers that they realized that it was going far. Citing from the setting background of Walt Disney’s cartoon series, it was marked as the guide to the animator and an orchestra from its musical background. The general development of the company was realized in 1950 when it
Founded on October 16, 1923, Disney was known to be one of the largest media and entertainment conglomerates. It had specialized in television, radio, and theme parks & attractions. Walt Disney and his brother Roy produced many short animated films starting with their series of collective films called Alice Comedies and quickly gained their success from there. Within months, the Disney brothers created their own studio and thus the creation of Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, and the rest of the Disney characters was born.
Strategic Problem: How can Disney Corporation leverage the Disney Studio Entertainment business unit's core competencies in developing "franchises" and high quality content to increase the scope of Disney's Studio Entertainment operations? The studio entertainment division is currently a "star" business unit – with world leading market share (24.1%) in the motion picture industry, and increasing global growth; with a 24% global growth rate and 30% growth in China alone [1].
This paper will analyse a recent period of strategic change at The Walt Disney Company which began in 2005 with the appointment of current CEO Robert Iger. The company began to experience halted growth during the late 1990s. The former CEO Michael Eisner had been successful himself in the late 1980s in changing the company during what is known as the Disney
Disney has moved well beyond its cartoon-oriented roots. Though the company is still involved the production of original feature films and other related media (and though the media network division of the Company is still the organization’s leading generator of revenue) the company has long since stopped being your typical “animation studio” or “film production company.”