P1(e) Competitors

P1(e) Competitors

Meaning: Any person or entity which is a rival against another. In business, a company that has the sale industry or a similar industry which offers a similar product or service. 
One to more competitors can reduce the prices of goods and services as the companies attempt to gain a larger market share. 

Purpose: The purpose of this section is to understand what other competitors or other big media companies, how they affect the profits of The Walt Disney company. 

The Walt Disney Company, as a multinational entertainment company, it faces a number of competitors in its various segments. Such as Viacom Inc(VIAB), Time Warner Inc. (TWX), Twenty-First Century Fox (FOXA), CNS and Comcast (CMCSA).

This is a screenshot about the competition of broadcasting. The company has to compete with other companies on media, television stations, online video services and video games. Companies like : Viacom, Timewarner, 21ST Centuty Fox and Comcast. 

As Walt Disney Company is a multinational company, it doesn't only focus on media and films, but also hotel and resorts, theme parks and studio entertainment. Therefore, the range of competitors is quite large. They have different competitors in different competition. 
I have found some informations from the 2015 Disney annual report. 
(https://ditm-twdc-us.storage.googleapis.com/2015-Annual-Report.pdf) 

 Disney's Media Network business compete for viewers primarily with other television and cable networks, independent television stations and other media, such as DVD and Blu-ray formats- video games, and the internet. Also with the sale of advertising time, its broadcasting operations, some of its cable networks and its television and radio stations. They also have advertisements from newspapers, magazines, billboards and the internet.

This is a screenshot of the competition of theatrical investments. It also shows the Studio Entertainment businesses compete with all forms of entertainment. Many companies also produce and distribute theatrical and television films, the company do not only compete for television programming services and produce live theatre, but also compete to hire talents, story properties, advertisers and broadcast rights with other companies. 

This is a screenshot of the competition of theme parks and resorts, the Walt Disney has to compete with other forms of entertainment, lodging, tourism and recreational activities. However, the profits are very hard to control, it might be influenced by various factors, such as economical conditions like business cycle. 

Here is a screenshot of the comparable of each company. These are the competitors of The Walt Disney Company. From this screenshot, we can see that there are comparable of all the companies. From the SMM, we know that The Walt Disney Company is quite high among other company however is a bit lower than Comcast Corp. 

(http://marketrealist.com/2014/01/disneys-competitors/)

Advantages/Disadvantages of competition

Advantages:

- Competitors will invest in marketing and the combined marketing efforts of a number of competitors will increase the development of a nascent market. When a large company enters a market, it shows  the market in the minds of many who had not been paying attention to it before.

- Competition encourages a team, many companies start to work harder a bit after they have successfully taken control of a market. 

Disadvantages:

- Competition is challenging. First when the company has strong competitors, it  will lose business to them easily.

- Sales costs increase, time to close and makes it harder to grow rapidly. 

- Competitors will also spread fear and doubt in the marketplace. 

- Competitors can also strike business deals with powerful allies and gatekeepers who can make it hard and at time impossible to enter certain parts of the market.

- Competitors will also impact your fundraising and exit plans. When you have a competitor that is raising capital, it will often cause an entrepreneur to think they need to raise capital to compete.

From the 2015 annual report, it mentioned the advantage of increasing competitive pressure, it might reduce the revenues and increase the cost. From this screenshot, it shows all the disadvantages given to Walt Disney Company from other company, which shows also the disadvantages of competitors.

In here, we know that competitors will decrease the viewers of the company's broadcast and cable networks and stations, which reduces the profits. The company also compete to obtain creative and performing talent, sports and other programs, because they have to produce interesting movies and home entertainments to attract audiences in order to maintain the revenue and increase the profits.

Although Walt Disney Company has theme parks all over the world and mainly in developed countries,for example Hong Kong, Shang Hai, Japan etc, which can increase the profits because people have better living, and has a higher spending power, however, there are also different theme parks who compete with The Walt Disney for guests, entertainment, tourism and recreation activities. People have a lot of choices to choose, and they compare different theme parks whether they feel interesting in. So, it reduces amount of guests and therefore decreases the profits.  

The company compete not only the creativity and entertainment, but also the media licenses, publisher and retailers of characters, because the customers or audiences will easily get mixed up if a character has the same name in different movies from different companies, and in most of the famous movies, the name of the character is very recognising, therefore, when they are planning all the details of the movies, they have to fight for the publishers and retailers of the character. All the movies that will be published have to get a licensors, so in order to publish it as soon as possible and smoothly, the company has to compete for the licensors too.

Walt Disney Company is a interactive media company, it also does all sorts of online games, radio stations, and mobile games in order to enhance their popularity and profits. So, they they have to compete again for creativity, so attract the attentions of the audiences, with this they have to fight got publishers of console, because every game or other type of home entertainment requires a publisher of console, so it is published legally. 

P1(d) Market position

P1 (d) Market Position 

Meaning: Market position is " the place a product occupies in customers minds relative to competing products" in terms of market shares, revenues and profits. Companies apply this strategy either by emphasising the distinguishing features of their brand (what is it, what it does and how, etc) through advertising. Once a company is positioned, it is very difficult to reposition it without destroying its credibility. It is also call product positioning. 

Purpose: In this section we will understand about the shareholders, market share and market position of The Walt Disney. 

Market Share: Market share is the proportion of industry sales of a good or service that is controlled by a company. 

For this section I will use Disney's annual reports to support my ideas.
I go to the official website of The Walt Disney Company, they have annual reports of every year. I would use the most recent annual report- 2015 Annual report to help me.
(Resource from: https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/investor-relations/)

This is a screenshot from the internet showing the market position, competition and market share of The Walt Disney Company.

(http://csimarket.com/stocks/competitionSEG2.php?code=DIS)

From this table we can see that Walt Disney Company has 100% market share on parks & resorts, studio entertainment and customers product, which is one of the reason why it is so successful and has high market position. 

Walt Disney Company also share market share with other company, for example ion Interactive Media, Google occupies 93.54% of the share while The Walt Disney company shares 0.29% of them, other companies like AOL inc and Activision Blizzard. Inc, also share the market share, they are count as competitors to The Walt Disney Company.

P1(c) Products

P1(c) Products 

Meaning: A product is a good that a company manufacture or produce to the public, this product could be media product, food, clothes or anything, it does not have to be an object for sure. It is made to entertain the audiences or to fulfil the needs for customers in normal lives.  

Purpose: The purpose of this section is to understand what Disney use to increase their profits, and the famous media product of The Walt Disney.

Company products the goods that the company produce, the Walt Disney Studios  is a media company, the company therefore produce products such as games, animations, films, toys and souvenirs from the movie in order to raise profits. 

    Walt Disney's first feature motion picture was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and its first live-action film was Treasure Island. Animated films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar are also released by Walt Disney Pictures. Walt Disney Pictures has released 4 films that have received an Academy Award for Best picture nomination, Mary Poppins, Beauty and the Beast, Up and Toy Story 3.

However, there are also many films that are famous and high-grossing:

-Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's chest

This movie is directed by Gore Verbinski and the story is written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. The actors involved are Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley. 
It is about 3 pirates: Captain Barbossa, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann, they must sail off the edge of the map, facing treachery and betrayal, and make their final alliances for one last decisive battle. 
This movie is so high-grossing, therefore Walt Disney has produced other goods from this movie to improve the profits. 

Here are some examples of the products:

Chests from the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Toys of some particular characters in the movie.

Costumes from the characters in the movie.

And ofcourse, the DVD version of this movie, so audiences could watch it and again whenever they want. 

This is a video game from the movie, which entertains young audiences or fan from the movie to play it. 

-The Lion King

Lion king is another high-grossing movie among the other Disney movies, it was directed by Rofer Allers and Rob Minkoff. It took place in a kingdom of lions in Africa. 
The story is about the story of Simba, a young lion whose father is the king of the lions- Mufasa, however after Simba's uncle murdered Mufasa, Simba thought he was responsible for it and left his homeland feeling a shame of himself. He lived with 2 wastrels, Sumba is given some valuable perspective from his childhood friend, Nala, and his shaman, Rafiki, before returning to challenge Scar to end his dictatorship. 
Walt Disney expand their profits on producing souvenirs from the movie. 
Such as creating dramas and musical. 

This musical is performed in many places in England, it is very amusing and interesting to watch, as it added musical elements with the storyline of The Lion King. This is the official site of the musical and people can purchase tickets in here.

This musical helps producing toys, dolls, accessories and also t-shirt from the theme of the story, helps gaining more profit. These screenshots show the look of the product, size and price of the products, they are all quite affordable so could be purchased by anyone in different economics level. They could be purchased from the internet as well, making it more convenience and therefore attracting more people to be interested into this movie.

-Toy Story 3

Toy story is one of the most famous movie in Walt Disney. It has part 1, part 2 and part 3. It is directed by John Lasseter and vocals from Tom Hanks, Tim Allen and Don Rickles. 
It is about the life of the toys of their daily life, one of the toy, the cowboy called Woody, is his owner's favourite toy. However, one day the owner got a new spaceman figure on his birthday, due to feeling threatened and jealous he tried to get rid of him. 

This movie is so successful that it even has an official site for it. From the top, we know that this site contains store, games, video, TV, blogs, movies and music. It also has parks & travel. 
From the store, we can see that it has not only got the souvenirs from The Toy story, but also other animations such as Cinderella and Tangled. It has a wide range of gifts and toys so attract more Disney fans to increase the profits. 

In the Toy Story's store, we can see there's a lot of products, such as cups, costumes, pyjamas, status, duvet cover, DVDs and so on. They are quite affordable, most of them cost around £10- £20, so most of the customers could purchase them. Therefore, attracting more Disney Fans to purchase. 

-Frozen

Frozen is released in 2013, and attracted a lot of kid's attention. It is directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee. The characters are also voiced by Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel and Jonathan Groff. 
The movie is about a newly crowned queen Elsa accidentally uses her power to turn things into ice, and cursed her home in infinite winter, her sister, Anna, teams up with a mountain man in order to save her sister. 

-Finding Nemo

Finding Nemo is a comparatively old movie to Frozen. It was released in 2003. Written and directed by Andrew Stanton. 

It is about a clownfish named Marlin, who used to have a wife called Coral. They had moved to a new house, and laid a lot of eggs. Unfortunately ,they were attacked by the predators and Marlin was knocked out. By the time he woke from his unconscious, Coral and all the eggs have disappeared, with only an egg left, Marlin named this egg Nemo, which was the name that Coral liked.

Marlin was worried about Nemo's safety after this incident, and embarrassed him in a school field trip. 

Nemo sneaked out of the trip but unluckily got caught by the Australian divers. Marlin decided to go save Nemo, and he encountered Dory, who was a kind-hearted but had short-term memory lost. They started their adventure to seek for Nemo. 

From the screenshots above, we could see that most of the souvenirs of Finding Nemo are soft toys, because the characters in this film are mostly sea animals, so in order to attract children's attention, they made a lot of of soft toys for them to hug and as a decoration. 

However, they also have other products such as cups and phone cases. 

-Inside Out

Inside out was released last year in 2015, the film was directed by Pete Doctor and co-directed by Ronnie del Carmen. 
This film is about 5 personalised emotions: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust in the mind of a young girl, try to lead her life as her parents move to a new place and adjusting her new life. 

In the Disney store, there wasn't a lot of products as the films above, however they still have DVDs and CDs, one soft toys and storybook for Inside out fans.

-Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland is released in 2010, directed by Tim Burton. 
This movie is about a young girl when she first visited magic underlined. Alive Kingsleigh is now a teenager with no memory of the place, except in her dreams. Her life was unexpected until at a garden party for hot finance and herself, she spotted a white rabbit and followed the rabbit down a hole. Reunited with all her friends the mad Hatter, the Cheshire cats and others. 
The movie is so successful and the part 2 is going to be released this year on May. 

From the Disney Store, we could see a varies range of souvenirs, like phone case, character figures and costumes. 

-Zootopia 

Zootopia is released in 2016 March, which is the newest movie from Disney yet. It is directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Jared Bush. 
This movie is about a city named Zootopia, a mammal metropolis where various animals live and thrive. When Judy Hopps becomes the first rabbit to join the police force, she quickly learns how tough it is to enforce the law. In order to prove herself, she jumps at the opportunity to solve a mysterious case. Unfortunately, that means working with a wily fox who makes her job even harder.

 

According to this movie is new and popular, Disney produced a lot o products for this movie in order to increase the profits. From the screenshots above, we can see that they have costumes, daily needs, toys and etc. Which meets demands from kids to adults. 
As animations are usually more popular among the children, we can noticed that there are more soft toys and kids products, so attracting more of their attention to purchase them. 

-Monsters University

Monster university was released on July 2013, and directed by Dan Scanlon. Ever since Mike was a kid monster, he has dreamed of becoming a Scarer. To make his dream come true, he unrolls at Monsters University, During his first semester, he met Sulley, a natural born Scarere Sully and Mike engage in a fierce rivalry that gets them with kicked out from the course. To make things right, Mike and Sulley decided learn to work together.

Surprisingly, this movie did not produce a lot of souvenirs, because it was very popular as well, however Disney produced DVDs for people who want to watch the movie again and again, also some figures from popular characters in the movie. 

-Maleficent 

Maleficent is a movie released in 2014 May, it is adapted form Sleeping Beauty and directed by Robert Stromberg. Maleficent is played by Angelina Jolie, a very famous celebrity, to increase the popularity of this movie. As a beautiful young woman of pure heart, Maleficent has a wonderful life in a forest kingdom. When one day, an invading army threatened the land, Maleficent rose up to become its fiercest protector. However a terrible betrayal hardens her heart ad twisted her into a creature bent on revenge. She engaged in an epic war with the invading's king successor then cursed his newborn daughter, Aurora, realising only later that the child holds the key to peace in the kingdom. 

This movie did not produce a lot of products as well, probably because this movie is more for adults and teenagers than for children. Therefore, the products are less childish. 

-Brave

Brave was a movie released in 2012 August, and directed by Brenda Chapman and Mark Andrews. 
This movie is very encouraging, especially to girls. It is bout a girl caked Merida, she is impatient but courageous, she is the daughter of Scottish King Fergus and Queen Elinor, and is a skilled archer who wanted to carve her own path in life. 

This movie did not produce a lot products as well. However, they have costumes and toys for girls. It also have the archery set, so girls or children could experience the feeling of the main character - Merida. 

These films are all high-grossing and caused a lot of money to produce. Their box office gross could reach up to $424,000,000 , here we can see that these films are popular and people's reaction to them. That is one of the reason why The Walt Disney is one of the most popular media known in the world.