The Characteristics Of Disney's Marketing Plan And Organization

According to Carl Hiaasen, “The secret weapon is trust. Disney is the most trusted brand name in the history of marketing. It hooks us when we’re little and never lets go; this unshakeable faith that Disney is the best at knowing what’s best.”(13) It is time that this myth be shattered.

The Walt Disney Company, more commonly known as Disney, is a company that was founded in October 16, 1923 by brothers Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney under the name of Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio. The company eventually changed its name to the current Walt Disney Company in 1986. The company was headquartered in Burbank, California. The company is a public company that has diversified to live-action film, television, and even theme parks.

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.

Disney has substantial access to resources which makes its spending power and capabilities to compete almost limitless.

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

One of Disney’s main core competencies is its marketing ability. The Disney brand has been consistently listed on Interbrand’s Best Global Brands list. In 2014, the firm ranked #13 and in 2013, it was ranked #14. According to Interbrand, Disney’s lasting brand success has to do with the company’s ability to emphasize creativity, technology, and global growth within its long-term business strategy. Another factor that attributes to the firm success is its capacity to understand what consumers want and how to personalize their experiences. For example, the new MagicBand and mobile application, which was introduced at Disney World in 2013, allows the customers with the use of technology to personalize their Disney experience. The band enables the participants to travel lighter throughout their entire vacation.The band can act as a hotel key, credit card, and ticket. The mobile application allows customers to book tickets make restaurant reservations and create a schedule of day’s events.

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

Strategic Planning is the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organizations goals and capabilities as well as emerging market conditions and opportunities. Disney's primary strategic objective is to product high-quality content through their entire product mix. The company also had a record financial performance in 2010 led by the Disney movie studio last year was the first in history to make two film that crossed the billion-dollar mark at the global box office Toy Story 3 and Disney's Alice in Wonderland. Another strategic objective that Disney has set is the goal to make experiences more memorable and accessible through innovative technology. The final strategic objective that Disney has focused on is international expansion.

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 success of movies and television programs were due to diversity and distribution. It does its own distribution and targets several markets from children to adults. Finally, the Disney character consumer product sector, which includes clothing, home goods, and toys, has been an extremely important asset to the company. For example, by establishing deals such as an agreement with Mattel, Disney was able to manufacture more than 14,000 Disney licensed products. Furthermore, Disney expanded it’s retailing by opening up Disney stores.

According to Robert Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Company, Disney’s corporate strategy for diversification is a combination of three objectives that are to be achieved through the fundamental alignment of the Company’s core business units. The three objectives to be achieved by The Walt Disney Company are (1) creating high-quality family content, (2) exploiting technological innovations to make entertainment experiences more memorable, and (3) expanding internationally. The Walt Disney Company’s three objectives that make up the Company’s corporate strategy are to be achieved through each of the Company’s core business units that are split up in to five divisions (1) media networks, (2) parks and resorts, (3) studio entertainment, (4) consumer product, and (5) interactive media.

Disney is one of the most successful and largest companies in the world. They have their hand in nearly every form of entertainment as well as media, and broadcasting. Disney is best known for their animated films, unique cartoon characters, catchy musicals, and fairy tales that most of us were first introduced to as children. They are one of the few entertainment companies in the World whose primary demographic is children and teens. Nearly everybody is familiar with the Disney name and its brand, and its realistic to suggest that nearly everybody has experienced a Disney film and animated character at some point in their lives; which may have helped to influence them or their behaviors or even their

Walt Disney Company for eighty years has captured the attentions of millions of people around the world, offering family entertainment at theme parks, resorts, recreations, movies, TV shows, radio programming, and memorabilia (David, 2009). Today, Walt Disney possesses four main business segments: Disney Consumer products, Studio Entertainment, Parks and Resorts, and Media Networks. Each of Disney's business units increased profits apart from its interactive division, which was recently restructured (Garrahan, 2011). By combining Disney's long history with the commitment to quality, Disney Consumer Products has had a large and steady presence in the toy marketplace (Anonymous, 2010). Studio entertainment has been somewhat of

Disney has become a marketing goliath and the #1 entertainment company in the US. They have been able to develop a creativity-driven philosophy that over time was tempered by financial responsibility and that benefitted from powerful synergies between its divisions. From the very beginning, Disney has been synonymous with innovation within the children’s entertainment industry, from their introduction of animations with synchronized audio, full-length animated feature films and then later into theme parks and on-ice and Broadway shows. One important element of Disney’s success was the extent to which they integrated and expanded into different

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.”