Cultural And Social Challenges Of The Walt Disney Company

Disney’s long-run success is mainly due to creating value through diversification. Their corporate strategies (primarily under CEO Eisner) include three dimensions: horizontal and geographic expansion as well as vertical integration. Disney is a prime example of how to achieve long-run success through the choices of business, the choice of how many activities to undertake, the choice of how many businesses to be in, the choice of how to manage a portfolio of businesses and the choice of how to create synergies between those businesses (3, p.191-221). All these choices and decisions are

This report is aim to analyze profitable adventure of The Walt Disney Company to set up Disneyland theme park in India. As one of main emerging markets in Asia, India might be the next destination for The Walt Disney Company to target on. Therefore, this report uses a series of marketing tools to demonstrate the macro-environment and micro-environment in India, such as PESTEL, SWOT, Porter’s Five Forces Model and Self Referencing Criteria. Based on this analysis, the current situation of India shows an attractive prospect to Disney in terms of economic and technological development, the diversification of culture, and the acceptance of Disney products and services.

Similar problems occurred in Disneyland Tokyo, where management didn’t even think about the height difference of Asians and Americans, resulting in too high public phones for Japanese guests. Concluding it is clear that the American company originally tried to implement a standardization strategy, when launching theme parks in other countries, without taking the local culture into consideration. Country specific procedures and regulations, and different local customer preferences forced Disney to adapt features of the US theme park business model to the local markets.

The case “Euro Disney: First 100 days” talks about the issues faced by the Walt Disney Company when expanding to international borders. The case begins with the history of Disneyland and then describes the reasons behind its success and expansion to various states across the country. It then describes the success of Tokyo Disneyland, first Disney theme park outside America and the factors affecting it.

Euro Disney marketers have recognized a trend. People are going to theme parks during the weekends for adults as well as children entertainment. Indeed, there is an existing need for entertainment of this kind. Therefore, an opportunity exists in the European market that Euro Disney could have taken advantage of.

Today, the Walt Disney Company is highly diversified - it is divided into 5 major business segments: Studio Entertainment, Parks and Resorts, Media Networks, Consumer Products, and Internet & Direct Marketing. Since this paper stresses on only one strategic business unit of Walt Disney, Parks and Resorts, the following discussion of the elements of marketing mix will be with respect to this SBU only.

The Walt Disney Company has seen their share of success in taking their parks and resorts into global markets. “60 years ago, the first Disney theme park opened, in California and was the brainchild of Walt Disney himself, who was motivated by the lack of entertainment options available to him and his two young daughters.” (Forbes, 2016). Disneyland California penetrated the market rapidly, and its popularity led to the opening of Disney World in Florida, followed by global expansion in Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong. Their latest expansion came in June 2016, on a 963 acres’ site in Shanghai, China (Xu, 2012). After one year in operation, Shanghai Disneyland is outpacing their most optimistic projections, and the park’s

The Disney Corporation has had both positive and negative effects on American society. Disney has majorly affected both the youth and adults in America by way they interact with each other, what they expect from each other, and how parents bring up their youth in harsh and unrealistic expectations according to Disney. Disney has fostered a strong sense of imagination in the past, present and future youth of America. This sense of imagination is necessary to the development of children when it comes to success in life and self-confidence. The Disney Corporation knows how to work it’s audience for a profit and mastering that skill has allowed Disney to accumulated billions by advertising and selling fantasies to young children and their parents. It’s also these very ideas that influence what Americans believe our government and policies should be founded on. In “The Mouse That Roared” the author states “Education is never innocent, because it always presupposes a particular view of citizenship, culture, and society. And yet it is this very appeal to innocence, bleached of any semblance of politics, that has become a defining feature in Disney culture and pedagogy” (Giroux 31) This quote defines Disney at large. Disney has created the idea of ‘imagination’ in American society and perpetuates it in everything America does and influences everything America stands. In everyday American life, politics and business, The Disney Corporation has a hand in it.

Globalization. Walt Disney Products and Services are found all over the world in different forms and areas. Disney has focused on growth internationally in the last few years. As a global brand, Walt Disney International provides oversight of the company’s

Globalization is forcing all companies, large and small, to focus on a larger competitive landscape. For many companies hypercompetition arises and they are left with stunted growth while competing with other businesses across the globe. Fortunately, Disney has constructed one of the world’s most recognizable and beloved brands in the entire world. To understand the external environment in which Disney competes, we must first discern which market we wish to analyze. Disney owns a plethora of companies across an extensive list of industries including publishing, game production, retail, theme parks, and software. By far the two largest segments of Disney’s business are its parks/resorts and media networks; those will be

The Walt Disney Company is an outstanding renowned entertainment and media corporation with business ventures in Media Networks, Parks and Resorts, The Walt Disney Studios, Disney Consumer Products, and Disney Interactive. Walt Disney Company is a diversified corporation with products all around the world. (The Walt Disney Company, n.d.)

Unlike Americans who were known grazers, Parisians were less likely to eat in the same fashion, with most places closing down earlier, leaving many without better food options, and still sans their wine. (Yue, 2009) A good description for Disney Paris was a "cultural Chernobyl” because of its odd blending of American and French pairing, which did not quite work. It was not just about the marketing and cultural issues, finically they were struggling from the beginning, after the first financial bailout and restructuring, another would soon follow. (Grant, 2003) Another park, Walt Disney Studios was opened in hopes of bringing in more guests, however, yet again, failing to utilize any contingency plans or measures in case it was not very lucrative, it was discovered that the cost of running two different attractions was too expensive.

Walt Disney once said, “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” Walt Disney was one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time, a man who took a dream and pursued it, making a worldwide famous company, Walt Disney World. This paper will look at the history, financial situations, and marketing strategy of Walt Disney World. As Walt would say, “Sit back and enjoy!”

For my final paper I chose to discuss The Walt Disney Company. Since the Company is so large and made up of four primary business segments, I decided to focus on one particular segment: Parks and Resorts. This segment is composed of the theme parks, cruise-line, and vacation club resorts.

"Cultures are dynamic and change occurs when resistance slowly yields to acceptance so the basis for resistance becomes unimportant or forgotten"[2]. Which means that on the part of the European community we are certain to see compromise, but over a period of time. Disney too has to reconcile with the environment it has settled in. We read in the case that Disney does ultimately mend its ways. Making room for continuous change is the best way to go about ones business.