University Assignment: Disney Studio Case Study on Tentpole Films

This case study analyzes The Walt Disney Studios, focusing on its strategies for tentpole films and its organizational structure with multiple labels or sub-studios. The assignment addresses the advantages and disadvantages of the tentpole strategy, which involves producing and marketing big-budget movies, and assesses its impact on financial performance. It also examines the benefits and drawbacks of Disney's structure with multiple labels, considering aspects like consumer advantages, income generation, risk diversification, and the ability to target different markets and audiences. The analysis incorporates relevant business concepts and frameworks, including the Blue Ocean Strategy, to evaluate Disney's strategic choices in the competitive film industry, and provides an in-depth discussion of how Disney navigates the challenges of managing multiple studios and brands while maintaining its overall brand reputation. The study also emphasizes the importance of understanding market dynamics, competition, and the need for innovation in the entertainment sector.

Running head: DISNEY STUDIO
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Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors note

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Answer to question 1
The tentpole strategy helps in deciding which movies to make and how in this strategy
each of the studios will contribute. This strategy focuses on producing and marketing big
budget movies (Mingant, 2007.)This strategy supports the financial performance of a movie
studio they use the rival studios.
There are certain advantages and disadvantages of betting on tentpole films, the
disadvantages is that movies made based on tent polestrategyif there is box office failure then
it would be really costly. To maintain right balance between the pursuing and existing
franchises and new original concepts is difficult and it is critical for the studios long-term
health.When movies are made based on tentpole strategy and if they do not work, then there
is the cause of high profile failures.At a certain point air, traffic control around tentpole gets
very complicated and there is the issue for choosing release dates for tentpole. Focus may get
lost on stories because all the money are used on actors and special effects. If the strategy has
failed then it is big and public because huge investments is required in this strategy. In the
tentpole strategy less film are made because the budgets and resources are used up (Perlgut,
2010).
The advantages of betting on tentpole films is that it helps in distinguishing the particular
studios from the sea of other studios by producing movies that are big, that have global
appeal and other studios will get out of the way. The movies made on tent pole strategy helps
in compelling enough to make people go and see such movies.It attracts the consumers
through factors like the big actor, special effects and bigger directors. It can also bring
intellectual property of successful tentpole films into Disney parks. The tentpole films
differentiates from other films because a large amount of investment is required for this film.
The films gets additional benefits from merchandising (Brown, 2015).

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Answer to question 2
The advantages of having a structure with multiple labels or sub studios as Disney has
is that it gives an advantage with consumer. It helps in generating their income through
different business models. The different studios helps in putting movies into theaters in more
than seventy countries. They get variety of stakeholders,the executives of the company, the
filmmakers the theatre of the community and the press who wants to know about the launch
of movie. Different studios gives the idea for development process each studio has a
development department that finds idea. It help to cover different media networks it cover
cable and broadcast television networks like the Pixar Animation studio make the films based
on the technology they had made the agreement that both the parties will share the costs and
parties. Using multiple labels helps them and the customers to understand easily which
studios is producing what kind of films. It helped them to share ideas and technology, enables
them to compete with the larger firms, each studio is responsible for their own specialty and
expertise. The different models used in the studios helps in generating income, helps in
targeting more movies one at a time. Sub studio helps in diversifying the risk, if one of the
studio does not have the good future that can be sold off. Another advantage is that having
multiple structure also make it easy for Disney to buy future studios from international
markets. Each studios cam make their own culture and let employees feel close because if
everyone is together it may feel too big and corporate.
However, there are certain disadvantages of sub studios it is harder to foster the
communication each studio cannot immediately share what they had learned. The substudios
do not promote the overall Disney brand,as for example the Lucas film does not show the
Disney logo. It is harder to manage the workflow and production because the studio like

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Pixar might not be busy so much but Disney animation could be very busy. Pixar can only
consult and cannot provide the actual work force. Employees in each studio may want to
work in other sub studios because they may think it is better and they might get tired of only
working on one thing i.e., Marvel so many employees want to move around.
Disney spends a lot of money on marketing its films across all media like TV, radio,
outdoor and outline, being Disney owning lot ofbusiness segments has many advantages they
also market their films through other platforms. The solid brand reputation of Disney attracts
the partners who want to co- brand. Disney launches the film with a wide release strategy.
They work with over seventy countries to release their blockbuster tentpole and often make
agreements with the theaters to show their films up to a month (Sun, 2005).
According to the Blue ocean strategy, it is important for Disney to tap the market with
lower set of competition. This is due to the reason that the lower will be the intensity of
competition; the more will be the business opportunities for Disney. Thus, innovative market
opportunities should be identified in order to have a new market segment for Disney. In this
case, the strategy of them of having different labels will be effective due to the reason that
different labels are targeting different sets of markets and thus the larger target areas are
catered (Aithal 2016). This is also increasing the probability of getting untapped market and
introduce new label accordingly. Having different labels is helping Disney to tap the newer
opportunities in different segments. However, on the other hand, if they are having only one
brand operating in the market, then the market diversification will get reduced for Disney.
This will create barriers for Disney in tapping the new market segment. For example, the five
labels for Disney are catering to different segments and audiences, which are helping in
fending off the competition (Aithal and Kumar 2015). Hence, it can be concluded that
according to the blue ocean strategy, the strategy of having different brands over having
single entity is suitable for Disney.

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References
Aithal, P.S. and Kumar, P.M., 2015. Black Ocean Strategy-A Probe into a new type of
Strategy used for Organizational Success. GE-International Journal of Management
Research (GE-IJMR), 3(8), pp.45-65.
Aithal, P.S., 2016. The concept of Ideal Strategy and its realization using White Ocean Mixed
Strategy. International Journal of Management Sciences and Business Research, 5(4),
pp.171-179.
Brown, C., 2015. Filmed entertainment as an attractive asset class.
Mingant, N., 2007. Hollywood’s global outlook: economic expansionism and production
strategy. Revue LISA/LISA e-journal. Littératures, Histoire des Idées, Images, Sociétés du
Monde Anglophone–Literature, History of Ideas, Images and Societies of the English-
speaking World, 5(3), pp.99-110.
Perlgut, D., 2010. Studying the Event Film: The Lord of the Rings [Book Review]. Metro
Magazine: Media & Education Magazine, (165), p.142.
Sun, Q., 2005. Predicting downstream effects of high decisional conflict: meta-analyses of
the decisional conflict scale (Doctoral dissertation, University of Ottawa (Canada)).

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