The Walt Disney Company - Conglomerate

The Walt Disney Company Conglomerate - Case Study

The Walt Disney Company is one of the biggest conglomerates in the world meaning it is a multi-industry company which owns lots of smaller companies within it. There is no one above of the conglomerate who owns it and they only own other companies. Due to the mass scale of the conglomerate, the majority of Disney products are made entirely within the company. 

The Walt Disney Company owns a huge amount of networks channels - the biggest ones being ABC, National Geographic and Disney Channel. Along with this, studios such as Pixar, Marvel and Lucas Films are also owned by Disney as well as streaming services such as Hulu and Disney+. Due to the huge success of all of these subsidiary companies, Disney also owns a global network of theme parks and resorts with huge popularity. 

The conglomerate has a huge number of divisions ranging from TV, music, radio, films, production, advertising, merchandise, streaming, brands, video games and publishing - all contributing to the huge success of being one of the biggest companies within the world. As they also own all of their intellectual properties - most of which are huge recognisable brands - copyright and trademark regulations are placed on all of their brands and characters in order to protect them from being stolen and many of these intellectual properties including the muppets, the star wars brand, pixar characters and disney princesses are used on everything from clothing to food. An example of this is items for kids such as clothes, lunch boxes and juice/snacks are commonly branded with Toy Story or disney princesses in order to attract kids to the recognisable brand along with furthering the Disney conglomerate.

Due to owning such a wide range of companies, advertising and distribution is all done within the conglomerate to save money and to prevent the involvement of external companies. Their main distribution is done through the Disney Media Distribution which provides Disney services to 240 countries worldwide. Advertising such as posters, trailers and merchandise are also all created within the conglomerate to  maximise keeping it inside the company. Disney's strongest aspect is being a cross-media company - their profit allows them to keep taking on more projects and continuing the profit. They also create a massive revenue due to using everything they sell from dvds to toys as advertising. The Disney brand in itself is advertisement - even from the smallest logo - due to being such a huge brand.

Vertical integration - when multiple processes are used within the same company - is used everyday by Disney. As they own their own production studios and advertising companies as well as streaming companies, they are able to keep the whole process within the company without involving external companies. Horizontal integration - when different areas of the conglomerate that aren't related are used - is also common as new target markets are explored and created.

Synergy is created by the Walt Disney Company as news channels such as ABC are used in order to advertise other disney products occasionally - rather than keeping specifically just to the news.

Walt Disney Company Video - https://youtu.be/sLevdkjBb1o