“Beauty and the Beast” – The way forward
“There are many Indian families with disposable incomes who are willing to spend on an experience of this kind and scale. However, their options are limited to watching a movie or going out shopping and eating out.“ (Punjani, 2017)
In early January 2017, Vikranth Pawar, Creative Head of Live Entertainment at Disney India (Bloomberg, 2017) and show director of Beauty and the Beast, was waiting in the Genie Conference Room of Solitaire Corporate Park’s office at Andheri. He was to meet with Mahesh Samat (new MD and Director), Sujith Vaidya (CFO and Vice President), Sameer Ganapathy (Head of Interactive) and Amrita Pandey (Head of Marketing & Distribution) in an hour to discuss the future of their very successful Disney musical in India. They were planning to analyze the growth strategy of the Broadway-style musical “Beauty and the Beast” after its successful launch at Mumbai and Delhi. The success of the project was important considering the recent decision of Disney to stay away from Bollywood Films after its successive losses in “Fitoor” and “Mohenjo Daro”.
“Beauty and the Beast” had been conceptualized under the leadership of ex-MD Siddharth Roy Kapur. Kapur, who had held the position since 2014, wanted to offer Live Entertainment to today’s well-travelled audience. In an interview to Firstpost, he explained -
“They [the audience] have the inclination and the ability to spend their leisure time and money on new experiences. Today an urban Indian family's avenues for entertainment are limited to going out for a movie, a meal in a restaurant, visiting a mall and that’s about it. We believe that with live entertainment we will be able to help fill part of this void of entertainment options for families in the country,”.
(Baksi, 2015)
Vikranth was skeptical about the support from the New MD and the future of the Broadway-style musical considering Disney’s recent strategic decision of consolidating operations and focusing on better marketing its Hollywood products in India. Amrita Pandey, head of Marketing, had raised concerns about the future as forecasts showed a declining trend in the market share of Live Entertainment/Events as a portion of the total M&E industry. Also, the sector being highly fragmented and unregulated, faced robust competition from Television and other digital entertainment sources. So the question was, what needed to be done to sustain Disney’s business in this space. He also had to suggest a plan for the future shows, venue cities and audience that Disney should target. The current offering was targeted at kids, so could Disney also look to cater to the adult audiences as well? However, the most important question to answer was, taking into account the diversity in India, how could shows be adapted to the local culture and trends.
History of Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, founded on October 16, 1923 by brothers, Walt and Roy Disney in Los Angeles, is one of the largest media and entertainment corporations in the world. It was started as a small animation studio by producing a series of short live films called Alice comedies. During the next 14 years, many changes took place to Disney including the birth of first the Disney character “Mickey Mouse” in 1928 followed by the rest of the Disney gang. (The Walt Disney Studios, 2017)
Beginning in 1940s, Disney launched itself into the production of live-action features and television programs. Its film: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is the only animated film to be ranked in the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest American films of all time.
In December 1966, Walt Disney passed away due to lung cancer, and his brother Roy continued to work on their dream projects. Disney continued to expand internationally by adding more and more theme parks and media assets. In April 1983, Disney channel was launched, with the intent of being a premium channel catering to children and teenagers by the day and families by the night. Today, Disney has become one of the biggest Hollywood studios, and owner of eleven theme parks and several television networks. (Robins, 2011)
Since the founding of the firm, the Walt Disney Company has adhered to its commitments to produce unparalleled entertainment experiences, with a strong focus on quality creative content and exceptional storytelling. The company, combined with its subsidiaries has four business segments: Media networks, Studio entertainment, Theme Park and resorts and Consumer products. To know more about the history of Disney, please refer Exhibit 1.
Sources of Revenue for Walt Disney Company
Disney has divided its business in four major segments - Media Networks, Parks and Resorts, Studio entertainment and Consumer product and Interactive Media. (Disney, 2016). Media and Networks contributes maximum (43%) to the revenue of the firm. (See Exhibit 2a). The last five year’s revenue can be seen in Exhibit 2b.