Walt Disney is an American based conglomerate in the industry of mass media and entertainment with its headquarters in Burbank, California. The company was founded in 1923 in Los Angeles, California, and grew international in different businesses and products. The revenue of the company for 2019 is more than 69 billion USD, which is the evidence of its success as a mass media and entertainment company.
Product Development
Product development has been the major focus of Walt Disney in order to grow as a company continuously at a global level. The product development has aided the company to become one of the most successful cartoons, and entertainment industries as the continuous innovation and newness in the products kept the consumers fresh with the company. Taking the mass media business of the company, which is for the electronic entertainment of the consumers. The company has developed the products continuously of different types to keep the maximum people engaged with the company. Disney Channel is the major channel that brought success to the company, but the company did not depend solely on the Disney Channel but developed the products in different categories. National Geographic is a major inclusion to the product line of the company by providing insights about the wildlife. This product extension by the company has attached the attention of a wholly unique and niche market, which diversified the customer base of the company, along with improving the loyalty of the customers. ESPN is another major innovation and inclusion in the product line of the company, which has enabled the company to attract customers in the sports field. Throughout its journey of almost 1000 years, the company has put a high focus on product development (Walt Disney, 2019).
Market Development
According to De Groote (2011), market development is the expansion of the market by exploring and targeting new markets, especially geographically. The company started in Los Angeles, and the products and services of the company are now founded in different regions of the globe. Looking at the Theme parks of the Disney company named Disney Land, the company started the parks from the US. After the huge initial success of the theme parks in the US, the company decided to grow in terms of geographical market. Today, Disney Land is found in different countries of the world, including the UK, France, Germany, UAE, India, China, Malaysian, Singapore, and many more. It shows the focus of the company towards market development, and this growth-oriented strategy from the perspective of the market has aided the company to become a successful international organization.
Diversification
Demo (2014) mentioned that Walt Disney started as a cartoon studio in Los Angeles, and currently, the company is involved in the cartoon industry, theme parks, and mass media industry. The company has diversified conti9nously over the decades to keep growing. The management of the company understood the importance of diversifying continuously; otherwise, the company would be at threat of getting replaced. The diversification should not be done just for the sake of it, but the company has gone for the related diversification for most of the time. The theme park is related to the entertainment industry as the cartoon studio industry. The company has made a connection of theme parks with cartoon characters to inflict the influence of the success of the company in the cartoon industry on the theme park industry.
Market Penetration
It is stated by Stein (2011) that Walt Disney is a name of success in the mass media and entertainment industry, which started from its cartoon studio. The company got initial success in the cartoon industry and made a decision to penetrate further into the market by producing more options for the cartoonist and consumers. The company expanded its boundaries for the products and studio offerings, which led to the market penetration strategy.
The focus of the company towards the growth strategy provides a lesson that international companies have one thing in common, which is the approach to grow and expand in terms of market, products, and customers. This allows them to keep on growing and reach the level where different factors of competition start to become irrelevant to the company.
References
De Groote, P. (2011). Globalisation of commercial theme parks Case: the Walt Disney Company. APSTRACT: Applied Studies in Agribusiness and Commerce, 5(1033-2016-84139), 21-28.
Demo, G. (2014). B2C market: development of a CRM scale. In Marketing in the Cyber Era: Strategies and Emerging Trends (pp. 85-95). IGI Global.
Stein, A. (2011). Why we love Disney: The power of the Disney brand. Peter Lang.
Walt Disney. (2019). About us. Available at: https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/about/