Bye Bye Mickey...Disney is Ready for the New Generation (Yahoo Finance Article)

Z

Zman-ks

Well-Known Member
Interesting article....
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alphac2005

alphac2005

Well-Known Member
"Bob Iger is Walt Disney re-created," says Brian Sozzi of Belus Capital Advisors. "He's re-imagined the company to position it for the longer term. It's about making it cool again."

There are your cringe-worthy quotes of the day. It's only fitting that a guy who's business it is to only be concerned about his and his clients' wealth in terms of Disney as a financial asset would make a statement like that. Many of us would argue that inevitably, many of these purchases go could go south, or rather, not have high returns if Disney runs them into the ground whether it's too many consumer goods with the same characters or things like the MARVEL films having run their course with just too many superhero films.

If Bob Iger is Walt Disney re-created, oh, nevermind, how can you even get beyond that statement?....
 
The Tomorrownaut

The Tomorrownaut

Active Member
If you look beyond narrow and short-sighted views that limit your Disney interest to WDW, you'll see that this article is spot on. In today's market, Iger has been making all the right moves that have delivered all the right returns and if you aren't happy with theme park progress, TDO is to blame, not Disney corporate.
 
Theme Parkitect

Theme Parkitect

Active Member
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/bye-bye-mickey-disney-ready-next-generation-122425894.html

Let me start off by saying that yes, I do appreciate some of what Iger's done for the company. But when an article titled "Bye, Bye Mickey! Disney is Ready for the Next Generation" appears on my homepage, I can't help but gag. The acquisition of Pixar, I feel, really solidified the link between the two brands and Lucasfilm can bring some great experiences to the Parks (especially DHS who we all know needs it most) but it stops there for me. I must admit when journalists say that Disney had morphed "from a company living off nostalgia to a cutting edge brand that is driving traffic to its parks and appealing to generations of new fans," it really grinds my gears. The translation of that is "Disney has shunned their vibrant past of original stories and theme park innovation. They have instead turned their attention to buying guaranteed success franchises and creating sequel after sequel. Not to mention, creating theme park experiences that rely entirely too much on artificial environments, and not in the traditional brick-and-mortar fashion. They have done this in order to get turnstiles spinning, er- RFID gates moving, with cheap gimmicks." When people compare Iger to a modern-day Walt Disney I don't see the goal. Walt was not a believer in repeating your own successes and was most definitely against buying other's franchises to make a profit. After the wild, unexpected success of "The Three Little Pigs" the rest of the company, not to mention the public, pleaded with Walt to create sequels to the short that would show the Pigs later adventures. Here Walt is famously quoted as saying "You can't top pigs with pigs." The complete ignorance of Walt's original spirit and character sickens me enough, but for our modern society to simply change what they want to believe about Walt sickens me further.
I'd like to end this rant with a note that I do love Disney and see some potential in a lot of the fields they're headed into, but I get very heated on the topic of shunning the old Disney and trying to say Walt would or wouldn't do at the present. I don't like to be one of the people whose constant phrase is "Walt would be rolling in his grave," because I see no point in trying to determine what he would have wanted. However, I also see no point in trying to compare Walt and Disney's leadership at any other point in time. People, their attitudes and society itself is constantly changing, but I do believe we should have enough respect for the past to properly represent it.
 
The Empress Lilly

The Empress Lilly

Well-Known Member
Wish I would've bought some stock at the beginning of Iger's reign...

The man attracts money like a magnet. He saw that WDW was underpriced and Star Wars undervalued. Pixar was a good deal, Marvel a brilliant move. He understood that DL could not work as a resort without a functioning second gate, and that China was underserved. All his choices are homeruns.

I don't know the television market all that well, but I believe that all of Disney is basically a minor subdivision of ESPN. :cool:
 
devoy1701

devoy1701

Well-Known Member
The Tomorrownaut said:
If you look beyond narrow and short-sighted views that limit your Disney interest to WDW, you'll see that this article is spot on. In today's market, Iger has been making all the right moves that have delivered all the right returns and if you aren't happy with theme park progress, TDO is to blame, not Disney corporate.
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Sure. the Company had grown stagnant and was no longer able to/the talent was given the opportunity to continue to be creative and a market leader alone, so they had to "acquire" all of their now popular properties. As an investor, I applaud his succes, but for my love of the company and of the empire that Walt created, I cringe at what TWDC has become. A media conglomerate that mostly has nothing to do with the properties that the company originally created.

The Empress Lilly said:
Wish I would've bought some stock at the beginning of Iger's reign...

The man attracts money like a magnet. He saw that WDW was underpriced and Star Wars undervalued. Pixar was a good deal, Marvel a brilliant move.
I don't know the television market all that well, but I believe that all of Disney is basically a minor subdivision of ESPN. :cool:
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Bought my first house off of proceeds from Disney. I still hate Iger though.
 
GrumpyFan

GrumpyFan

Well-Known Member
Zweiland said:
And therein lies the problem. Money is all he cares about.
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I think that's probably a stretch.
As the CEO and leader of the company, his main concern should be pleasing the board and driving the company to make more money for its shareholders. This allows him to keep his job. If he fails to consistently do this, he will be removed and replaced by somebody who can. So, you can say that all he cares about is money, but I think he, like most anybody who has a job in this day and age, should be most concerned with pleasing his boss(es). So, blame Wall Street, if anybody, but don't blame the man for doing what he was hired to do.
 
Theme Parkitect

Theme Parkitect

Active Member
GrumpyFan said:
Before everybody panics, nowhere in the article do they ever mention dumping Mickey Mouse. In fact, the article reads almost like a sales pitch for Disney stock, touting how great a company it is and how much Iger has done to make it a great value, as a stock.
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No I don't believe they could get away with dumping Mickey at least for the next few generations. What aggravates me is the attitude towards all original Disney entities. That they are somehow "spoiled" or "lesser" because of their age.
 
Joshua&CalebDad

Joshua&CalebDad

Well-Known Member
I always chuckle at the negative chatter concerning change at Disney. Hardcore Disney fans that are anti-change seem to forget that one of the characteristics that made Walt so great is that he was was a pioneer and was well known for his forward thinking. Walt never stayed in the same place long.

I am just as nostalgic as the next person and am disheartened when I hear that TDO is either removing or modifying one of my beloved rides from childhood. But then I remind myself that if Walt was still around, he would have definitely changed things by now and would have thought of something better and greater.

Walt was never one for being tied down to one idea. He was constantly changing and rethinking things. Heck, look at the differences between Disneyland and Disney World from a planning perspective. He learned from his mistakes at Disneyland and changed things for the better at Disney World. I wonder what his third "MK" park would have looked like, or if EPCOT would have really looked like his earlier model.

I am not always thrilled about change that is based on generating revenue at the expense of quality but that sometimes is the corporate mentality. However, at the same time, if Disney did not keep itself on its toes and keep expanding or moving into new and untouched markets/ventures, the company could and would eventually become stale and could ultimately hurt the vision and company we all love so dearly.

And that's my two cents, thanks for reading. :)
 
Wilt Dasney

Wilt Dasney

Well-Known Member
Disney's past is a blessing and a curse. There is a rich store of materials there, but a company with 80+ years of history and a demanding slate of investors doesn't lend itself to a fiercely iconoclastic thinker like Walt Disney. It's not just that Walt is gone, it's that if he came back, he'd probably be more interested in starting something new than working within the constraints of the Disney Company. At best, fans can probably hope for caretaker CEOs who don't completely ruin what's already there, and occasionally augment it with something worth seeing.
 
SMS55

SMS55

Well-Known Member
I understand with keeping the company fresh and the need for new ideas, but Disney has become the empire that it is because of nostalgia. Parents have passed that nostalgia and that love they've had for Disney on to their kids. In a society where everything is about sex and violence it is the one thing that parents can share with their kids.
 

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