Essay on Walt Disney Company

Essay on Walt Disney: Introduction

The Walt Disney company has almost 100 years of experience in the mass media entertainment market. The company provides various types of entertainment projects, products, services, and programs. This paper analyzes the Walt Disney company’s business structure and its place in the mass media entertainment market. This paper also focuses on The Walt Disney company’s SWOT analysis, and it concentrates on possible market research for The Walt Disney production. In this sense, market research includes four interview summaries, and it also gives insights into these people’s empathy and journey during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, it includes a literature review of the research to combine The Walt Disney company research with previous researches relevant to the topic.

Walt Disney Description and SWOT Analysis

The Walt Disney company owns lots of other mass media brands such as Marvel. Also, the company has its facilities, services, and products. The company’s services and products are located worldwide, and the company gains a valuable income from its services and products from the mass media entertainment market. The company’s other assets include channels, production brands, and streaming platforms.

The Walt Disney company is seen as one of the five major mass media entertainment brands globally. In the third quarter of 2020, Walt Disney announced that its financial revenues decreased compared to last year’s revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this sense, the company’s revenues came in at $11.779 billion, a 42 percent decrease from last year’s $20.262 billion (Aughinbaugh, 2020). Therefore, the company announced that its total loss was $4.718 billion due to the pandemic. However, the company gained a reasonable income even in the current situation.

The Walt Disney company’s unique proposal is to entertain, inform and inspire people worldwide through the power of unparalleled storytelling, reflecting the iconic brands, creative minds, and innovative technologies (“Disney,” 2020). Also, the company’s tone of voice is family-friendly, and they have an explicit general customer relationship that is available for their target audience. The company has wealthy resources to produce their entertainment projects. In this sense, the company organizes social responsibility activities all over the world.

According to our SWOT analysis, the company’s strengths are that they have positive brand equity, wide-range brand awareness for its products, and various types of services, products, channels, and facilities. The company’s other strengths are producing high-quality products, having a long experience in the mass media entertainment market, and having good customer relationships.

Walt Disney’s weaknesses are commonly their target audiences that are focused on families and children. Also, some productions are not published on other platforms such as Netflix. Therefore, some of their products are published at limited channels that belong to the Walt Disney Studios.

Walt Disney’s opportunities are mass media entertainment market expanding every year, and the company’s new productions are gaining more target audience. During the pandemic, the company set a family-friendly tone, and they were sensitive to the current situation.

Walt Disney’s threats are that the company shut down all of its new productions due to pandemic, and their major competitors gained more market share because they keep producing shows and tv series. Also, customer habits have changed due to pandemic, and the company can face difficult times to reach its target audience.

Scenario and Focus of the Paper

This paper focuses on Walt Disney’s cartoon product, such as movies or tv series. In this sense, Soul is one of the company’s 2020 cartoon releases, and it will be released on 25 December 2020. Therefore, this paper has concentrated on the Soul product of the company. The Soul is a good example of this market research exercise because this research can determine possible new consumer habits and popular media channels that can be used for advertising. Also, it can evaluate post-pandemic consumer habits for promoting new productions.

The scenario is related to the product: The Walt Disney Studios is launching a new movie on Netflix. They hope to connect with the general audience from the mass media entertainment market. The Soul story is about a middle school band teacher Joe Gardner’s true passion for playing Jazz, and the storyline revolves around Joe Gardner. This new production proves the big cities are the perfect places to set a story by playing Jazz music.

The movie shows the concerns and passion of people who are living in the big city. The movie reveals the big dreams of adult individuals taking unexpected steps to make their dream come true and search for their soul for connections. Whether they live in a big city or a small village, what would you attack your persona in this movie? What is the promotional strategy required to attack the attention of your persona to watch the movie? Where will people watch this movie? How will they learn about this movie release, and which media channels will they use to discuss it?

Interviewee 1 uses many social media channels, such as Instagram, Twitter, Netflix, and YouTube. Interviewee 1 commonly does not involve in any kind of arts and social media activities. Interviewee 1 looks for a cultural thing to do; it searches for the latest products or activities. Interviewee 1 says that his cultural activity research has changed since the pandemic because he loves to involve activities that are done with other people. He loves cultural activities. He does not search for new entertainment forms.

Interviewee 2 loves to participate in arts and media activities such as theatres, concerts, and movie premiers. He searches for a cultural activity to do; he tunes in social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube to look at information about activities. However, he admits that since the pandemic, he did not attend any activities that included crowds. He loves arts and media activities, and now during the pandemic, Interviewee 2 searches for new entertainment forms. More specifically, he says that he attends online concerts in its home. In this sense, he collects information on Instagram just before tuning in for the online concert. He says that its family, friends, and colleges attend online concerts or other entertainment forms more frequently. They are having concerns about how much time they are spending on new forms of entertainment.

Interviewee 3 attends various types of arts and media activities, such as watching Instagram live streams and videos. She says that when she searches for cultural activity. She goes out to a museum or classical music concert. However, she admits that she fears to go out to see a museum or listen to a classical music concert since the pandemic.

Interviewee 3’s friend says that she should try new forms of entertainment channels more and enjoy it. Her colleagues approve her for spending less time in new forms of entertainment channels. Eventually, her life partner saying that they cannot make conversation about new content in these new forms of entertainment channels because it spends limited time on these channels. Interviewee 1 is aged between 21-35. His education level is post-secondary. Relationship status is single, and income under $20-50K. The state of employment is other. Interviewee 2 is aged between 21-35. His education level post-secondary and relationship status is complicated. His income $50K+, and its state of employment is a creative worker. Interviewee 3’s age is 36+, and her education level is secondary. Relationship status is in a relationship; her income is $50K+, and the state of employment is other. Interviewee 4 is aged between 21-35; her education level is post-secondary. Relationship status is in a relationship, her income under $20K, and the state of employment is a student.

Interviewee 1 empathy map persona includes he feels connected to social media channels, but he concerns attending new forms of entertainment channels. He says that he loves social activities that include other people and avoids new forms of entertainment channels. He seems that his friends and family members often consume these channels, and he hears new content on social media. He fears getting sick, and by not going out, and he measures success.

Interviewee 2 empathy map persona includes it feels happy to watch concerts, and he spends lots of time on social media. He says that he enjoys watching online concerts. He hears that some people are having concerns about how much they spend time on social media channels. He fears getting sick due to the pandemic. He sees new content on social media, and he measures success by watching concerts.

Interviewee 3 empathy map includes saying that she spends time on social media, but she focuses on doing physical activities. She hears that people are spending too much time on social media channels. She seems that she cannot enjoy online concerts. She fears getting sick. Interviewee 3 feels bored. She hears that she should spend more time on social media, and she measures success by getting approval from his colleagues.

Research Review

Our research is focused on finding post-pandemic consumer insights about The Walt Disney productions, and our research included four interviews and empathy mapping analysis of these participants. Former research indicated that people started to consume new content higher after the pandemic (“Post Lockdown,” 2020). In this sense, another research found that pandemic influenced mass media companies badly because new content creation has been largely turned off (“Key Contacts,” 2020). In these former findings, our research found similar results with these former researches. According to Forbes magazine, their research on post-pandemic consumer habits showed that consumer changed their lifestyles and other personal qualities during the pandemic (Bakhtiari, 2020). Therefore, our research aimed to find new consumer habits that can help The Walt Disney productions with new promotion strategies.

Essay on Walt Disney: Conclusion

To sum up, our research examined Walt Disney Studios’ business structure and its products. Therefore, our research included a SWOT analysis of the company. Also, our research included four interviews and these interviewees’ empathy maps. The main purpose of the research is to determine new consumer habits and consumer insights after the pandemic. Our findings indicated that individuals started to spend much more time on social media channels, but some still do not like to attend new entertainment channels. After all, the possible new question is that how Disney Walt productions can create loyal customers through new entertainment channels?

References

Bakhtiari, K. (2020, May 19). How Will The Pandemic Change Consumer Behavior. Forbes.

Disney – Leadership, History, Corporate Social Responsibility. The Walt Disney Company.

II, D. A. (2020, August 19). David Aughinbaugh II. NavFile.

Key contacts Craig Wigginton Partner | Deloitte &Touche LLP [email protected] . (2020, July 10). COVID-19: Impact on media and entertainment companies: Deloitte global.

Post lockdown: a new digital consumer? Deloitte United Kingdom.