Disney synergy and stakeholders?
Question:
And: who are stakeholders of the Disney Corporation.
Any info, websites, or help is welcomed!! :) thanks
Answer:
Stakeholders usually means the following:
1. Shareholders. These are people who own the organization. They care about profits and perpetuation of the business.
2. Debt holders. These are people who lend money to the organization. They care about the credit worthiness of the organization (i.e. being paid back).
3. Employee. Self-explatory, but the Board should recognize how employees (especially managers) are compensated and how their encourages specific type of behavior.
4. Customers. Includes past, current and potentialy customers. Identifying the first two types is easy but identifying future customers is the hard part. That's what marketing is for. You identify the market, stratify your product and then address the market with a specific good/service.
5. Public. Your goods/service may have an impact on the people are you at large. Organizations should consider the social, environmental, ethical and business impact.
Synergy and marketing, huh? Well... let's talk about synergy in marketing (as opposed to marketing their synergy). Disney is a huge company made up of four key operational businesses:
Movies
Television
Parks/Resorts
Consumer Products
The marketing synergy really hits the sweet spot in the cross-marketing - starting with movies. The movies (i.e. through Disney, Pixar, Touchstone, Miramax and Buena Vista) are the cornerstone product. They are marketed before launch through partners, agencies, competitors (e.g. NBC, CBS) and subsidiaries. The subsidiaries is where the synergies really come in. Disney (DIS) owns ABC, the Military Channel, the History Channel and ESPN. Some commercials are run on these channels for movies - especially ABC.
Once the movie is launched, the company continues to gain marketing synergies for its other subsidiaries. Specifically, the consumer products division franchises out rights to manufacture and distribute consumer products. Enter "Pirates of the Carribean" lunchboxes, dolls, costumes, etc. Arrggghh... Jack Sparrow! The consumer product division made about 618m in operating profit last fiscal year, almost as much as the movies made themselves.
The more popular movies are then enfranchised into their Theme Parks and used as an attraction for visitors. Cue the revamped "Pirates of the Carribean". Hello, Poppit. Not only do you spend X-amount of dollars on the entrance to the parks, but you need a place to stay, something to eat (e.g. those sugar-water drinks in plastic bottles shaped like grapes or lemons topped with a crazy straw) and something to remember it by (e.g. Epcot T-shirts, mouse ears). The parks and resorts make MORE money than the movies.
However, the real money maker is in the media network. It's ABC. The movies really help foster a world of media entertainment - a place where watching television (and getting the advertisement) is a world that we all live in. It's hard to understand what it's like to live in a world not dominated by media. I live in Singapore (where I moved to from the US) where TV and movie do NOT dominate people's lives. Singapore is just too small to have good localized programming. As a result, the television market is predonimantly foreign television (e.g. Amercian movies and television). We have Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, Lost and all the Disney movies - but we have a lot less exposure to the pop culture and idol worship that feeds on itself. I guess that's a long winded answer to say that American culture is strongly media-centered. Try and go a day without using pop-culture in your day to day conversations. It's tough.
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