How Disney Uses Star Wars

Capitalism and the effects of it in current day society, has allowed Disney to gain access to many people worldwide in order to market and be apart of the public's everyday lives. Because of this, since they are buying so many companies and brands owned by Disney, they are able to make more money and repeat the cycle of selling and buying companies. One such brand, being Star Wars, has multiple assets and branches built around it by the Disney company such as: theme parks (Galaxy's Edge, 14 acres and located in Orlando, Florida. Star Wars Land in Anaheim, California), products as seen on the Disney store website, movies (Rogue One, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, Solo), food (Desserts, Beverages, Etc.), and apps video games (Battlefront 1 and 2, Star Wars Arcade, Etc.). Star Wars, being one of the biggest brands bought and owned by Disney, is a prime example on how Disney continues to market their different brands in order to make more money off of the people, and keep their position at the top of the entertainment industry.

In order to maximize profit, Disney as a company will choose to control what society thinks about Star Wars and other affiliated copyrights that they own. This allows them to show off and market only the best aspects of this major brand that they now control. In addition to this revelation, a bigger demographic is available now because of Star Wars, so they will make more money and customers off of them. This demographic ranges anywhere and people of all races and genders, especially past fans will continue to come back to Disney and Star Wars no matter how bad it may be (product wise). Because of this, the public's ability to decide for themselves whether or not Star Wars is worth the cost, will continue to thrive as they are unsure whether or not Disney would deliver them a good or bad product.

Corporation Tactics

Cross-development ? Involvement of multiple subsidiary companies in the development, production and distribution of a media brand to exploit profit (Synergy)

As seen in the article Star Wars: A Marketing Mastermind, Logan Godfrey states that, The franchise consistently finds themselves ranked in the five licensed brands every year. If you look close enough, hundreds, if not thousands, of companies harness the power of the Star Wars brand (in their advertising) Thus, allowing Disney to appeal to both the customers of the other companies, and their own fan-bases which allows all companies involved, including Disney, to make money off of these endeavors. 

Advertisements of individual products made by Disney for Star Wars are also made to appeal to audiences so that they can make money. As seen in appendix a, with the SOLO movie poster, Disney makes out the movie to be a cool, action packed story, that make consumers want to get more involved with the lore behind it. Thus adding more money to the pool that Disney is making off of Star Wars. Along with ads for upcoming movies and other products for Star Wars, some items released by Disney, such as the San Diego Comic Con Exclusives can range anywhere between $100-$500, and when being sold on the second hand market, it is worth even more. Most of these exclusive are toys such as figurines, toys, and plushes. These items also show that people will buy almost anything related to things they like. Since people have no self control, it is easier for brands, such as Disney, to manipulate their consumers into buying certain items because it is limited edition.

Though with Disney's shortcomings at the end of 2017, it announced a new Star Wars trilogy, that being SOLO, which sprung Disney forward in the stock market. Allowing Disney to once again, market to their consumers in a scheme to make they money they had loss in the previous year. And since every Star Wars movie created by Disney now is connected to the overall story, from the original 6, they can make and acquire more money easily thus with the announcement of the upcoming SOLO movie Disney believed that they had nothing to worry about when it came to the quality of the production since the would be appealing to both new and old fans. However, even so, a lot was riding on the upcoming Star Wars production they had just announced; but, in the end this caused Disney to lose out on a lot of money thus, having investors draw out and Disney to panic. And when the box office final values came out, one can see that the Star Wars movie SOLO was a huge let down on the company; it costed them $300 million to make yet they only made $150 million off of it. Also, since they own the Star Wars brand now, every item bought, even ones made before Disney bought the brand, will go straight towards Disney's collective empire.

Since Disney believes that by buying Star Wars they would be able to market in a way where they will make more money by appealing to viewers nostalgia, they will continue to make multiple series and spinoffs related to the original films made by Lucasfilms. This logic of safety set up by Disney will continue to occur if the films and products of Star Wars continue to do well. And even if it doesn't Disney will most likely find a way to still market to their niche audience over and over again to make sure they take every single penny from fans that will always and continue to support Star Wars. This taking from people perfectly exemplifies how they lack the ability of self control when it comes to basic likes vs needs.

Disney's so-called structure for movies has failed when it comes to Star Wars. According to Ashley Rodriguez 

Section 4: Repercussions and damages done by Disney

In this obvious profit motive Star Wars has set up as stated before one can't help but bring up the question, Is Disney ruining Star Wars? To many fans, Star Wars has both improved and gotten worse ever since Disney acquired it. With the constant push to buy products from Disney, Star Wars has seen an uprising in buying products to show support or to be superior then fellow fans. As shown in the article the author. And with SOLO being a major flop helps spearhead the campaign that Star Wars, for sure, has gotten worse ever since Disney bought it because, they are ruining a classic. Along with that since Disney blindly believed that all of their Star Wars movie would make them a lot of money, they chose to be reckless with the brand leading to their profit margin to shrink with the release of newer content. So in order to make sure they don't lose out on money, they are more likely to create safe spin-offs which can lead to the conclusion that the budget will be lowered significantly so that they can make enough money to satisfy their wants. And with this lowered amount of money fans can assume that Star Wars will diminish in both effort and creation of newer material. In addition to this, the public will keep spending money in hopes of getting better and newer content from Disney in order to quench their thirst of the past Star Wars that the people want so badly. Disney continues to lead its followers of Star Wars on in order to milk money from this brand until it is completely dry and stagnant. This is evident in their lack of an announcement of any new sequels or products with the Star Wars company. Since this is the case, one is able to make the conclusion that Disney is currently at a lost of how they should handle the Star Wars brand in order to make more of a profit off of it.

All of these productions made by Disney can be traced back to a profit motive and need to make more money in order to continue running the entertainment industry. From recklessly making products around Star Wars, to not caring about what happens to the brand all in an effort to make money, Disney continues to milk as much money as they can out of the brand. In doing so, fans are left on a wild goose chase to go after Star Wars, thus allowing Disney to make more money and repeat the cycle over and over again. At the end of the day, Disney is using the Star Wars brand to appeal to the public in an effort to make more money, as stated throughout this essay, and gain more consumers to market to.

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