The Walt Disney Company’s Own Risk Assessment Reveals They No Longer Value Expertise, Their Rejection Of Families Proves It

I’ve been asked to do a short “P.S.” on our coverage of The Walt Disney Company’s Form 10-K because, as we discussed it in the dark realms backstage at That Park Place, there was a point I’d meant to emphasize that somehow got left behind in my longer article (which you should read if you haven’t—it has gotten a LOT of attention in the wide world, notably by entertainment and culture columnist John Nolte at Breitbart.com.) And it has to do with expertise and its effect on the bottom line and on expectations thereof. The issue that we need to stress is that as much as all of us and everyone out there stresses how Disney has traditionally been about KIDS, the simple truth Walt never forgot is that kids HAVE NO MONEY TO SPEND. It is not just about Parents either, it is about GRAND parents too. In short while one can argue the merits in all those other ways above and/or demerits of the “non binary” (is that the right word? I lose track) family there is one immutable truth: It is ONE generation, not several. RELATED: The Disney 10k Annual Report Reveals Disney May Be VERY Worried About Their Place in the Culture War IF you are willing to bank on twos and not fours and sixes and tens and twenties, you are going to need to replace those duets, or even quartets of two couples of couples, ALL the time. And again, putting the rest aside the time honored business principle that is core to ALL kinds of businesses–widgets or services in or out of entertainment and culture–and is a backbone of EVERY marketing class, manual, and dictum since at least the Roman Empire is this: It is much easier and cheaper to RETAIN a current customer than it is to find and CREATE a new customer. So…. to not just “include” others but to vociferously and proudly REJECT and DISRESPECT your prior customer base of families who have kids and grandkids and, as medicine and diet improve, great-grandkids is FINANCIAL suicide even without the moral and ethical quotient. It cannot be anything else! To relate it back to our major triumph over the Form 10-K’s admissions, the one thing I wish I’d stressed more and that is perhaps worth something all by itself or at least emphasis in future is this: When Disney talks about the “risk” that they might, in effect, be guessing wrong on what people will like/agree with/buy, they are putting aside the fact that their judgement of such things has been a CORE ability/talent/principle of their entire enterprise going back to Walt, and, in effect, what people, be they customers/guests or licensees or investors or business partners–even the ChiComs–PAY them for is THAT ABILITY TO JUDGE what will be accepted and supported commercially by their market. IF they are now saying (a) we make choices based on what we believe in, not what we think customers will buy and (b) we might be wrong, and mightily so, in those choices and (c) so what–we believe in them and now sit down and shut up and don’t judge us rationally based on our reputation of success in making those choices in a way that paid off in the past because (d) it’s a brave new world, we’re leading it, get in step or get out of the way, and if the customers don’t buy the food, it’s their fault, we’ve got NEW ones! All twelve of them! So there!

RELATED: The Walt Disney Company Admits That Consumers’ Positions On Disney’s Environmental And Social Goals “Often Differ Widely And Present Risks To Our Reputation And Brands”

In other words, just as I’ve famously noted that what is sold in the entertainment business is attention span, what is sold by a company doing that to those who back it is their ability, based on experience and track record, to OBTAIN and KEEP that attention span. Disney’s flopfest shows they have lost or thrown away that ability/judgement, and their “risk warnings” say they’re aware of it but not worried about it and anyone who does is a doodoohead MAGA moron, so there! Not much of a grownup attitude for a major multibillion dollar for-profit public company to take. And eschewing families while telling them they’re out of date and wrong is just part of that arrogance…and explains a lot of why they are in a tumbling cascade of failure in their movies from which, as we noted in the earlier piece, they admit that EVERYTHING else—theme park attractions and attendance, hotel and cruise ship entertainment and theming, merchandise licensing and sales, the whole ball of Mickeywax—stems. There used to be a description of this attitude that my parents’ generation coined well and still holds true. It is told in the form of the parents who go to see the school band in a big parade because their son plays oboe in it and, watching as the multitude of gleamingly-uniformed bandsfolk march down Main St. (USA?) proudly proclaim with big smiles, “Look! Everybody’s out of step but our Johnny!!” And the other parents didn’t turn and look, but softly, sagaciously shook their heads and thought thoughts not suitable for replication in this very much FAMILY oriented publication. NEXT: Critics Savage The Walt Disney Company’s ‘Wish,’ Described As “Most Aggressive Piece Of Disney Propaganda In Years”