Disney was founded by 'The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio' other known as the brothers Walt and Roy O. on October 16th 1923. Walt Disney began creating an animated series, named 'Alice Comedies', along side with the help of Ub Iwerks who was also an animator. As the popularity of this series faded, Walt ad Iwerks invented a new animated cartoon character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit which was immensely successful in 1928 which was a pivotal moment as they had the rights stolen off of them, minimising any profits. Only until 2006 Disney managed to regain the rights to this character. Following this, Walt designed two unique mouse characters which were name Micky and Minnie. The film 'Steamboat Willie' featured the charater of Micky and was released in 1928 through Pat Powers distribution company. Disney furthered their progression started pushing the boundries with the first production of an animated feature length film in 1934. The film took 3 years to make and 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' first screened in December 1937 and became highest-grossing film of that time by 1939. The film was released through RKO Radio Pictures. After a period of development and success the couple, Walt initiated the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio with his brother. Establishing itself as the leading American animation company before dividing into live-action film production, television and theme park. After various name changes in 1986 The Walt Disney Company was assigned to the company after Walts death and still remains a major successor in the modern day.
In 1954 Walt conceived the idea of Disneyland through his desire for a location suitable for both children and parents. The first Disney attraction theme park was built and created in 1955, in California, accompanied by a live television broadcast. Followed by other theme parks being built worldwide in places such as Paris, Florida, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai which is the most recent, built in 2015. Disneyland has the most substantial cumulative attendance worldwide, summing to over 650 million visitors since it opened. However, Walt Disney never saw the majority of these theme parks finished as he sadly passed away in 1966, and Roy O. Disney took over as chairman, CEO, and president of the company.
An aspect of Disney which was successfully introduced was television. They were allocated their own channel called 'The Disney Channel' which was first screened in 1983. Initially, Disney Channel was mainly aimed towards family audiences, however they adapted and widened their marketed audience in the 1990's to suit more youthful viewers and later suiting teens. Additional channels such as Disney Channel Junior was used to satisfy its viewers around the ages 2-7. Disney XD was also introduced in order to cater for their slightly more mature audiences targeting children around the ages of 7-14. In doing so, gaining a wider audience as and an even interest with each channel and leading to more success. The most successful featured programmes in terms of feedback and ratings are Even Stevens, That's So Raven and The Suit Life of Zack and Cody.
Another aspect which Disney is dominantly know for is family movies, which are seemingly educational as they're engraved with life teachings and morals for younger audiences whilst still remaining entertaining for older generations.A staggering 492 titles has been created and many have resulted in high gross. A recent example of this is the release of Frozen which was created by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures in 2013. The film has a gross of $1,279,852,693 and was amazingly successful, however many companies collaborated with Disney in order for this to happen. An example of this is Youtube as the official trailers were released and advertised through YouTube and the music video for the song 'Let It Go' featured in the film had over 350 million views. Another company that has contributed the popularity of Frozen was therefore partly responsible for its huge income and interest was Apple through the use of it's iTunes store, containing 800,000,000 customer accounts. The film Frozen involves several songs throughout its narrative but the most famous being 'Let it Go'. Disney granted iTunes permission to sell, advertise and distribute a number of these song which were successful in raising the awareness and popularity of the film. 'Let It Go' accumulated over 3,000,000 and reached the top end of the music charts worldwide.
Furthermore, one of the most important forms of marketing used to promote the film is merchandise. Disney collaborated with major retail companies such as Hasbro, selling the rights to the company to make the frozen toys. Now producing a range of dolls created based on the characters from the film. They have even produced costumes that the characters wear in the film that can be purchased in the store of online. Apart from Disney promoting and advertising their ow products they also collaborated with Japanese company 'Secret Honey' by 'Honey Bunch' to create Frozen themed clothing ranges. This consisted of casual wear as well as replica dresses from the film that can be purchased online or in store.
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