Disney

* Nature of the Business

The Walt Disney Company (WDC) is a United Sates public company that has a diversify portfolio products, which has grown from one product the enchanted kingdom that Mickey Mouse built, into worldwide operations (The Walt Disney Company, 2009c).

In 1923, the Walt Disney Company (WDC) started as Disney Brothers Studio in Hollywood, California by both Walt Disney, who was an artist in Kansas City, and his brother Roy. Five years later in 1928, the Mickey Mouse cartoon, Plane Crazy, was the first cartoon that Walt directed. Then in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the initial animated feature film was produced by the studio (Hoovers, 2010b; The Walt Disney Company, 2009c).

Moreover, the WDC became known as a media conglomerate, which is one of the world’s top Media Corporations (second behind Time Warner). It focuses more on producing motion pictures. Now, acquiring media-related businesses allowed Walt Disney to successfully harbor all possible avenues of information such as broadcast (ABC Television Group), film/movies (Walt Disney Studios), and online, mobile and gaming (Disney Interactive Media Group). This company also has a print media arm: the Walt Disney Publications. It circulates a monthly magazine containing “comic stories based on Disney feature films and animated TV shows from The Disney Channel”. Then again, due to low sales, the magazine publication was stopped in November 2007 (Hoovers, 2010b; The Walt Disney Company, 2009c).

Aside from the media-related businesses of WDC, the company also ventured into Parks and Resorts and Consumer Products manufacturing businesses. Despite the seemingly varied businesses that the WDC acquired, all of these businesses are helping each other in the spirit of developing a strong and efficient Disney product mix. As we go along the paper, it will be explained how all businesses help in promoting the Disney business (Hoovers, 2010b; The Walt Disney Company, 2009c).

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