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Disney Is Making a Fortune and Safeguarding Its Future By Buying Childhood (economist.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Disney has been successful for the better part of a century. But they haven't always had to work as hard to do it. Over the past couple of decades, they've been facing more and better competition than ever before, and they've had to change their business strategy in response. An article at The Economist details this strategy, which seems to have a central theme: buy up things people loved as kids, and commercialize the hell out of them. The recent Star Wars film is the latest example — the marketing blitz around it (and its related merchandise) was a sight to behold. Disney is hoping that focusing investment on great content will protect them from the massive transitions underway in the content delivery part of the entertainment industry. "The biggest doubt is the durability of the model. It is not clear for how long such franchises can be stretched. And introducing new ones is a risk. John Carter, a film based on one of a series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, flopped. Cinema-goers will also have far more choice as other firms try to establish or add to their franchises."
crazy back in the 80's it was as pure as the virgin mary. no tie in toys by Hasbro or Kenner. No tie in fast food. no lines to see ROTJ because of full page ads in the newspaper. George Lucas made the movies out of pure love of his fans
The power of Disney is they are incredibly good at merchendizing. You can buy Frozen breakfast cereal. You can buy Star Wars anything (except the holiday special).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
This is what Disney has been doing all along... from Snow White to The LIttle Mermaid, pretty much everything Disney has ever had success with has been bought, borrowed or stolen.
The last original character that Disney created was Mickey Mouse.
Thats why they spent all that money to destroy public domain... dont want any competition.
That's how much Avatar made at the box office and it's a good bet TFA will meet or surpass that (which I continuously read as The F***** Article...)
When they bought Lucasfilm for 4 billion I thought they'd be hard pressed to make that money back. I knew they would but I thought it'd be several years and movies before they could recoup the cost.
But... they're going to practically do it with the first movie!
But Pixar is cool, right?
Grow up.
I read about this stuff in the 1980's in Marketing 101.
Did some SJW have deadlines and no ideas?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Sure, Disney does that. But where is the problem?
I surely enjoy those products. There is a company making entertainment products - and someone complains they are making entertainment products? Wuh? If you don't like it, you can ignore it.
As for Star Wars: That is the franchise that literally invented "marketing the hell out of it", so why complain now that Star Wars is used to marketing the hell out of it?
Just to clarify, John Carter flopped only because it had dismal marketing. It was not a masterpiece, but it was certainly better than many other recent blockbusters and with any sort of semi-competent marketing it would have been a (minor or major I don't know) success. I mean (at least until close to release) they had some boring trailers that didn't even tell you obvious things like "from the author of Tarzan" "from the director of Wall E / Finding Nemo" etc.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
From the featured article:
That would certainly be a clash of corporate culture. The Walt Disney Company's history of banning fan works and lobbying for copyright maximalism wouldn't mesh so well with the criticism of copyright shown in the third act of the The LEGO Movie (huge spoilers).
Every trailer and commercial I saw for that movie came across with the message that I should already know who John Carter was. Hence as I had no idea I had no interest in the commercials, trailers, or the movie itself. I'm still not familiar with the character. They could have introduced it much better to get people to care about it; think of how Rambo: First Blood was able to get us to care about a new character for example. Instead they tried to get us to care about the character through brute force, those who didn't go for it just stayed away and the movie flopped.
Hell just a better title would have gone a long ways towards bringing in customers. Even Borat had enough of an extended title to give people some idea what they were getting in to or why they might want to see it.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
And Stupid Article So Non-Tech & Toothless.
It may not be tech, but Disney's acquisitions bolster its clout in the market. And with its history of copyright maximalist lobbying, a bigger Disney is certainly YRO.
If I know it's a Disney product I avoid it. I don't NEED to see Star Wars.
Here's my simpler version. With it's princess industry, Disney already owned the market for girls from birth to... well, death. They had no hooks for boys though. So they bought Marvel and Star Wars.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Hardly suprising the Carter film bombed,it was one of a bloody awful series of novels,erb,was hardly the most popular author when new,now they are truly awful in comparison with more modern stuff. erb had a strange use of "english",even for his times,these days it just grates.. You would have to work very hard to make a decent film based on anything of erb's output... But then everyone compares so called flops to the most successful novel,film,series etc,and when you have dire over-hyped rubbish like star wars breaking records,nearly everything else will be considered a flop,wether it's any good or not..
A lot of grocery stores license a background music feed to play over the speaker system when an announcement isn't being played. This might be a song from a Disney movie's soundtrack, such as "When You Wish Upon a Star" from Pinocchio or "Let It Go" from Frozen. Or it might be a song by a Disney-backed recording artist such as Miley Cyrus or the Jonas Brothers. How do you avoid Disney in a grocery store?
"But at least I'm not buying it." Think again. The grocery store is paying for background music out of a fraction of your grocery bill.
Another situation: The FCC rules appear to allow U.S. cable companies to make certain services available only to those who have purchased its most basic TV tier. This usually doesn't include Disney's ESPN, which is usually in the second tier, but it does include the local affiliate of Disney's ABC. So if your Internet connection is faster than DSL, you're paying a cable company that's paying Disney.
Sorry, they lost my vote when they laid off their entire IT department and replaced with H1B's.
Shame on you Disney!
Yogurt: Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made. Spaceballs-the T-shirt, Spaceballs-the Coloring Book, Spaceballs-the Lunch box, Spaceballs-the Breakfast Cereal, Spaceballs-the Flame Thrower.
[turns it on]
Dink, Dink, Dink, Dink, Dink, Dink: Ooooh!
Yogurt: [reacts to dinks] The kids love this one.
[a dink hands him a doll that looks likes Yogurt]
Yogurt: And last but not least, Spaceballs the doll, me.
[pulls string]
Doll: May the schwartz be with you!
Yogurt: [kisses the doll] Adorable.
I'm an "old" dad of 2 little kids. They're both Disney fanatics as well as big fans of other "corporate media" properties. I think some perspective is required here. Of course it makes sense for Disney to buy up things like the Star Wars franchise, LEGO (perhaps) and other 80s-kid favorites. Why? Because people who were kids in the 80s and 90s are now in their 30s and 40s, and have a lot of discretionary income to spend. I was born in '75, so I do remember my childhood being filled with a lot of true innovations in technology -- personal computers, all sorts of "new" electronic toys, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc. These days, the innovation is focused mainly on getting that computer in your pocket to do cool new things, but this era was a little different in that everything "computery" in the kid space was totally new. So, Disney is targeting the older parents for 2 reasons -- first, people are waiting longer to have kids, and second, those who do are having fewer and are in a better position to buy stuff from Disney. I'm sure they go after younger parents too, but younger parents are usually stretched pretty thin compared to someone who's had time to acquire some stability in their lives.
I think the key is to make sure your kids understand that even though they love their media properties, they need to remain skeptical of marketing. I'm completely unaffected by advertising, but I am seeing that my 5 year old is now starting to inquire about add-ons to "free to play" apps. I don't love the fact that the marketers are manipulating his brain, but it's a fact of life. I've explained to him (in 5 year old terms) that things cost money, that parents have to work for money, that advertisers are only trying to get you to spend more money on their product and that he shouldn't believe everything they say. It's semi-effective. We don't let them sit in front of the TV, computer or iPad forever, and don't expose them to a million commercials.
It's fine to let kids and adults enjoy Disney or whatever -- they're an entertainment business, it makes sense that people enjoy their output. The problem comes when people shut off their brains and let the advertisers in.
Disney was too stupid and released it on a busy weekend in the US, it did quite well internationally.
They are like the "Apple of family entertainment" a roller coaster of highs and lows. Some highs:
Musical cartoon (1920s)
Feature length cartoon. (1930s)
Color TV show (1950s)
Family friendly theme park (1950s)
Family movies (1960s)
Revived cartoon musical (1990s)
Pixar, Marvel and LucasFilms (2000s)
Traditional content creators are running out of ideas and quite honestly, pushing the old remakes and "reality shows" way too hard. Maybe society as a whole won't go to a movie or watch something unless it has an expensive shock and awe impact? Sspectacular explosions, lifelike CGI, and situations beyond reality like cars falling out of airplanes and landing on four wheels and speeding off.
Maybe copyright extensions are too blame? Maybe corporate greed and extracting the most profit? I don't follow Hollywood or the movie/TV scene enough to form an opinion.
Ideally in this mix is a real chance for indie and fresh new ideas and movies but in our world of extreme cross promotion and in your face flooding of "news" about a new movie or new album release, it seems unlikely.
At least we have much easier ways to get access to other content now, not just what the big players want us to spend money on.
In spite of Star Wars success, Disney is down hard. DIS in now around $108, it was over $122 a few months back.
ESPN is a huge part of Disney's revenue, and profits, and ESPN has been losing subscribers since 2010.
Whenever a stock analyst wants Disney cheaper, they just trumpet the "news" that ESPN is losing subscribers, and Disney gets trounced. This usually happens about two months.
It isn't because John Carter is a new franchise. It's because the movie sucked and it wasn't that popular of subject matter in the first place.
the term princess is a microagression of the manocentric maleocracy as a feminine "derivative" of a male title
You have won the internets.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Disney have repeatedly and successfully lobbied for increases of the H1B scheme, and are notorious abusers and beneficiaries of it.
Paul Ryan has just gifted them a 400% increase in the number of H2-B visas issued. To be used for, surprise, surprise, cheap labor at theme parks.
Copyright terms get extended every time Micky Mouse or Snow White approach the public domain.
Bought attorney generals and corrupt judges are working to sink fantasy sports sites, the NFL's plan-B to preserve revenue as ESPN subscription decline. (This increases Disney's chances of getting a larger slice of a shrinking pie at the expense of the leagues.)
Yada, yada, yada.
It's a sad day when I agree with a pathetic old cook like Bernie Sanders, but the US is controlled by evil corporations, and none are more evil that Disney.
Defund DSNY!
Speaking as a fan of the actual Edgar Rice Burroughs "John Carter" books, I think that a big problem was that the Disney version was badly written. It felt as if they removed any sections where the book version of John Carter showed any intelligence, turned the heroine into a spoiled selfish brat, combined books 1 and 2 in a blender, and then filmed the result. Very painful to watch!
You say "Paul Ryan" but it was all of congress, including almost every Democrat, that sold us all down the river.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
May The Farce Be With You!!
vs riaa affiliates who'll never see an intentional dollar from me again.
Yeah, I'm no avengbusters:sharkgedon fan and i thought John Carter was an ok (not amazing) film that would be happily received by most sci-fi fans.
I guess this is the problem with pay up front model - it mostly rewards marketing... what about all of those terrible films that did great at the box office and pretty much nobody thought was good?
Tell me, why do you have to go on such a contrived path of logic
Because it resembles the contrived paths that I've seen copyright owners' counsel use successfully to convince a federal judge to find an alleged infringer liable.
A copyright owner seeks to control not only its own works but other works substantially similar to it. To prove copyright infringement in a U.S. court, a copyright owner must prove three things: ownership of copyright, the infringer's access to the original work, and substantial similarity of the works. This means avoiding infringement requires avoiding either similarity or access. I was trying to point out the difficulty of successfully avoiding access.
to get people to accept Disney?
I don't want people to accept Disney. I want people to accept that copyright is unfit for its stated purpose.
You know what, if Disney can buy up rights to older but popular movies and release sequels that are good, that doesn't seem like a problem to me. By all measures, the new Star Wars movie is a huge success. Disney made a killing at the box-office (and I'm sure just as much so with merchandising), but - at least currently - it seems deserved, more-so than the crappy prequels.
Just because it's Disney - and they're making money - does't mean it's bad.
Let's get something clear: John Carter didn't flop because of the source material. John Carter flopped because it was a terrible movie. From the music choices, the casting, the horribly stilted dialog, the mishmash story, unimpressive sets, this film was Doomed. It pissed off the source material's fan base and left everyone else going "wait, what?" Disney knew ahead of time that they had a stinker, so they didn't waste much money promoting it, adding to its demise at the box office. (Which isn't necessarily a bad thing -- it let the film disappear relatively quietly.) Yeah, that was a really unpleasant experience.
TFA implies something that we all know will happen -- when Disney has a hit, they milk it until we're all highly sick of it. (Except, for some bizarre reason, The Incredibles, but that's another story.) The Golden Age of a Disney franchise is the first few entries, (sometimes only the first entry -cough-liloandstitch-cough- ) before the Calculated Excess kicks in.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Copyright terms get extended every time Micky Mouse or Snow White approach the public domain.
I wouldn't be so certain of that. The Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft was careful to draw a distinction between harmonization to the copyright term of another economically significant market and what has since come to be called "perpetual copyright on the installment plan". In the case of the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, that market was the European Union, which a few years earlier had harmonized to the life plus 70 year copyright term of Germany. As of 2015, life plus 70 is still the standard, and life plus 100 is limited to only Mexico. And under current law, pre-1978 and corporate works are treated such that "life" ends 25 years after publication, meaning Rhapsody in Blue will enter the public domain at the end of 2019, and Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh will enter the public domain in the United States at the end of 2023. So if Congress again employs the harmonization excuse, what economically significant market would Gershwin and Disney suggest that Congress use by the end of 2023?
I for one liked the new movie.
There is room in the world for more Star Wars movies like the new one.
I swear, if someone actually solves the energy crisis with cold fusion there will be a crusade to conserve the hydrogen as pure...
Many films are made based on previously-published [stories].
Under the original Berne Convention, copyright lasted 50 years after the death of the author. Disney's film Pinocchio, a loose adaptation of a serial novel by Carlo Collodi, was released very soon after Collodi's copyrights expired. Years later, the Gershwin estate and Disney successfully lobbied to have the term extended to life plus 70 years. Had the present copyright term been in place in the early 1940s, Disney's film would have infringed.
Hypocrites.
Merchant sells exactly what people want, people purchase this, merchant does well. News at 11.
Star wars is something people loved, and giving them more is not a crime. Purchasing the rights to sell it would be a very good idea if you can do it. Letting people know it's for sale seems logical. I don't feel like star wars is forced on me. I certainly love it because things like the cantina band and all the swashbuckling fun of the old serial cliff hangers was made new again in my youth. I just saw the new one and the very best thing about it was that it felt like the orignal. People got angry about the 3 prequels precisely because the orignal was so good they just could not stand these travesties standing on the grave of their fond memories.
I hope disney gets ludicrously wealthy. My $12 was well spent for the amount of enjoyment I got.
What a scrouge story this article is.
I saw the trailer for the new Jungle book which looks kinda scarey for the intended age group. I'm guessing it's probably closer to Kipling's original. But to me Jungle book is the funny cuddly version of the disney animation not the red claw king kong look of the new one. Don't screw with my memories Disney, just give me back the feelings I had when I was a child.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
> hoping that focusing investment on great content
Those evil capitalist bastards!!! I demand they give equal time to crappy content, like my new show: George Plimpton's CSI: Video Falconry.
"No sane man will dance." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero
I mean I will still watch Star Wars, but I will be damned if I will pay Disney for the privelege. If I was an Indian, I would be happy to patronize Disney. However since I am old cracker, and Disney no longer needs the services of crackers, why should crackers (and niggers) support Disney. Disney is all about hiring labor that originates outside the USA. That is fine. Let them find a audience for the product outside the US.
The "Post Anonymously" button is right above where you type the post. Here, let me show you...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Farce will be with you... Always.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
No thanks. I meant what I said and I am not ashamed to say it. Disney is a cultural disease. Everyone who works for those criminals is a collaborator in the destruction of the public domain.
Circumcision is child abuse.
How about just stop equating your whole childhood to useless material crap? If you really need that old box of Star Wars (or whatever) figurines to feel like a whole and developed person, then I guess this would be an issue.
Seriously? Disney is "buying childhoods"? I know it's popular to think of all big corporations as evil, but come on. Your, apparently super-important, childhood was a memory. That cannot be bought. You don't need all the plastic that makes you feel nostalgic to remember your childhood. Get over it.
when I saw Star Wars make-up for sale in the mall last weekend. Next up will be star wars themed ford cars, sigh.
Ford ThunderCougarFalconbird.
It's got that certain retro-futuristic panache to it :)
I wonder what will happen to him? He's 4 and I worked hard to make sure he was never exposed to any ads (no commercials, no ads in games, generic containers for everything in the house, blocked branding/logos on devices), the only logo he knows so far is Wendy's and he just calls it "cheeseburger" because he knows absolutely nothing else about it. I didn't do this to shelter him or anything, I just did it because I hate branding/marketing and I won't have it in my own home. Now I realize it might make him naive when he finally is exposed to the stuff. Not sure what to do.
Yeah, that one janitor in the Magic Kingdom struggling to make his rent... what a jerk! Seriously dude... relax! Maybe you disagree with some of the executives positions through the years, but not everyone there is a collaborator. All commenters here aren't jerks just because you are.
Well, didn't the Death Star's contractors have it coming?
Circumcision is child abuse.
they should have bought jem and the holograms to prevent the abomination of a nickelodsplosion that it was.