1/ In 1957, Walt Disney drew his company's strategy (sketch below). It centered around content: good content fueled parks, merchandising, film & TV etc, all powering Disney's flywheel.
Disney has stuck to this strategy for 64 years, while also evolving to fit a changing world 👇
2/ I'm fascinated by how deeply Disney is embedded in culture (all around the world) & by the emotional reaction to the Disney brand. It all comes down to its characters & stories.
Disney's beating heart is its content—for example, *all* of these characters are owned by Disney:
3/ Disney is at its best when it's producing high-quality IP. Its 90s resurgence was driven by fresh stories:
1989: Little Mermaid
1991: Beauty & the Beast
1992: Aladdin
1994: The Lion King
1995: Pocahontas
1997: Hercules
1998: Mulan
1999: Tarzan
4/ That brought Disney out of a decades-long slump. In the 2000s & 2010s, CEO Bob Iger shrewdly *acquired* the best IP. He saw that content would be central to Disney's strategy & went on a shopping spree:
2006: Pixar, $7.4B
2009: Marvel, $4B
2012: Lucasfilm, $4B
2019: Fox, $71B
5/ New characters brought renewed life to Disney's theme parks. Bob Iger doesn't get enough credit for the performance of Disney Parks during his tenure:
In 2007, Parks was 30% of revenue & 22% of profit. In 2019 (pre-COVID), that share grew to 38% & 45%. Profit grew *400%*
6/ But Iger's ace was Disney+. While most of media was asleep at the wheel, he forced Disney to disrupt itself. Disney lost licensing money from Netflix & cannibalized its own TV and box office money.
Iger said, "The riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo."
7/ It worked. Iger managed to turn the 95-year-old ship. Just look at how fast Disney+ came out of the gate:
8/ Disney+ is now central to Disney's strategy. It gives Disney a direct relationship with customers & valuable data. Content is still king, but it flows through Disney+—& Disney+ creates fresh IP too (Baby Yoda, anyone?)
Here's my take at what the new flywheel might look like:
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