Even though industry changes in time,
Disney manages to adapt and stay to its success.
When Robert Iger, Disney chair and
CEO, purchased Pixar for $7.4 billion ten years ago, some industry thought he
was crazy. The Disney empire was known in animation and its classic characters
like Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy and the Disney princesses—some
of the best-known and most beloved characters in the world. Yet Disney
Animation needed some breakthrough.
Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The
Lion King were known for their good art in the 1990s, but things have lagged
since the start of the new millennium, while Pixar’s Monsters, Inc., The Incredible,
and Finding Nemo were all the rage.
After Pixar’s hugely popular Toy Story
appeared in the 2005 opening parade at Hong Kong Disneyland, Iger have
continued trying to infuse Disney animation from within but he realized the
best opportunities can sometimes be created through alliances with other
businesses. So he struck a deal with then CEO Steve Jobs to buy Pixar.
(Disney’s existing contract to distribute Pixar films was slated to end in 2006
and Pixar had announced two years earlier it would not renew the arrangement.)
It was a bold push towards the future.
A few years later, Iger made another successful deal to buy Marvel
Entertainment for $4 billion in 2009.
Iger used the Pixar and Marvel
purchases to convince George Lucas to sell them Lucasfilm in 2012. That deal
brought the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises within Disney’s fold.
The three acquisitions revitalized
Disney’s creative juices, and has allowed Disney to monetize these popular
characters through as many outlets as possible — theme parks, movies, toys — as
only Disney has proved able to do. For instance, the Avengers is a successful
movie franchise but it is also monetized in Disney’s theme parks. This strategy
has been, in itself, Disney’s great breakthrough innovation.
Between the three acquisitions plus
its own Walt Disney Animation and Walt Disney Pictures, Disney has built a
studio with five film brands. Each film brand has many characters with
imaginative stories that serve as franchisable assets.
Source: Harvard Business Review
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