Walt Disney Company Analysis and Marketing

The Walt Disney Company is considered to be one of the most active family entertainment companies in the world. Primarily Disney became known as an animated film company and a cartoon creator. Later, the company expanded its range of activities into other markets through the Disney stores and theme parks around the world. The Walt Disney Company’s key objective is to be the world’s premier family entertainment company through the ongoing development of its powerful brand and character franchises.

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.

Recent years have seen a major growth in the Walt Disney Company "enterprise" as one would call it. Growing from movies, TV, theme parks, stores to Broadway shows, Disney Company has set a benchmark for other companies. Early in 1996, Disney completed its acquisition of Capital/ABC. The $19 Billion deal brought the country's top television network to the Disney, in addition to 10 TV Stations, 21 radio stations, 7 daily newspapers, and ownership positions in 4 cable networks.

One of these media giants is the Walt Disney Company (Disney). Its dramatic growth from a small company to become an oligopolist in the media industry offers an interesting

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

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.

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American business cartoonist, animator, film director, writer, producer, and voice actor. As a outstanding figure within the American animation industry and throughout the world, he is considered as a cultural icon, known for his influence and contributions to entertainment during the 20th century. As a very powerful businessman in Hollywood, he and his brother Roy O. Disney co-founded The Walt Disney Company. The creation of Mickey Mouse; it all started when Charles Mintz suggested an all-cartoon series, with a rabbit as the hero: “ Walt thought that was a fine idea and set to work with Ub Iwerks on a cartoon character with so much personality, be seemed to be almost human” (Disney 43).

While most attractions in the Disneyland Park is for young children and tweens, Disney California Adventure Park targets teenagers and adults. This means Disneyland is able to attract people of all ages by a variety of its attractions, products, and services. Third, psychography provides Disneyland useful information about its customers. This can be illustrated by the customer’s motives. Disneyland understands that its customers are willing to spend a lot of money during their vacation, so it offers a lot of souvenir shops, bakeries and restaurants inside the park.

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.)

Disney has major competition from the media industry, competition is high for viewers with other television networks. This competition is also with satellite providers and several media networks to maintain a target audience.

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

The financial ratio analysis of a company is a useful indicator to measure the success of a company. By comparing financial ratios between companies in the same industry (competitors) it is a useful way for investors and shareholders to determine the financial health and/or the sustainability of a company. Disney’s main competitors within the industry include Time Warner and 21st Century Fox. There are five key areas of comparison that provide excellent financial analysis of a company. They are short-term solvency, long-term solvency, asset management, profitability, and market value.

In the last decades, the number of major corporations that manage to control media has decreased significantly, resulting in a high concentration of ownership. In 2011, only six media companies were responsible for 90% of the things we saw and heard on a daily basis compared to fifty companies in 1983 (Lutz, 2012). The Walt Disney Company is one of them. In this report, we will take a look at how the Company has succeeded in growing into the media corporation it is today.

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.