Disney used to be a near-universally beloved corporation. Families, particularly those with young kids, would watch Disney movies regularly and repeatedly, trips to Disney World or Disneyland could be the most exciting time of the year, and young kids played with toys based on Disney characters or dressed up as Disney characters for Halloween and when playing with friends. Now, however, Disney movies keep flopping at the theater and many families are tuning out.
According to Daily Wire Co-CEO Jeremy Boreing, what happened is that Disney squandered the goodwill shown it by consumers and built up by its huge content library, jumping off the proverbial cliff by offending its customers rather than just staying in its lane and producing entertaining content.
Boreing made that argument on the PBD Podcast, telling host Patrick Bet-David where he thinks Disney went wrong, who he thinks was responsible for the big problems at the Mouse House, and why its alienating its customers is a particularly big problem for it.
Beginning, Boreing said that though Bob Iger wasn’t involved in some of Disney’s worst decisions, he did set the stage for the company to do what it did, saying, “There’s a lot there to unpack. First, I’ll say, is any of it Bob Iger’s fault? Of course it is. Right, but Bob Iger wasn’t uninvolved in setting the stage for what was going to come after him. You know, you’re not Bob Iger, and then shocked, shocked and dismayed to figure out who they replace you with. So yeah, Bob Iger put a lot of this in place. He is one of the great executives of our time.”
Continuing, Boreing argued that Iger, who came back to Disney after former CEO Chapek caused major issues for the company, can’t walk away from Disney and that that’s causing issues for both Iger and his legacy and Disney’s attempts to recover.
He argued, “And we see it with professional athletes, all the time that they they come back after their heyday and, and, and do poorly, but they can’t walk away from the game. So I get that he can’t walk away from the game. And he can’t walk away from his legacy. And he’s a greater executive than anybody at this table will ever be. But that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t made his billion-dollar mistakes. And I think he’s, he’s dealing with one right now.”
Then, explaining one problem Disney faces – it’s inability to turn on a dime and quickly come out with new, different content – Boreing argued, “Yes, the window of time that it takes for these things to come out. It’s a huge part of it. If Disney decided today, we’re only going to make movies about a Bible stories. Well, you wouldn’t get one of those movies about Bible stories for three years. There’s just that’s just the reality of, of what that process looks like. So, So, that’s part of what they’re fighting against.“
He then got to the bigger issue, which is that Disney seems to have ditched its competent, apolitical employees and replaced them with ones who tend toward pushing woke messaging in its content, and so Iger would have a tough time restoring Disney to its former position, even if he wanted to.
Boreing said, “But I think the biggest problem that they have, and I know this from many, many incredibly gifted people within Disney, with whom I’ve I’ve spoken over the last year. They fired everyone who knows how to engage in traditional storytelling without all of this work nonsense in it. They created such a bubble over there, that even if Bob Iger does say, Bob Iger, if Bob Iger came out today and said, we’re not even going to release the crap, we’re going to take the hit. And then, starting on a day, three years from today, we’re going to relaunch Disney. He, he doesn’t have the team to do it.“
Further, Boreing noted that Iger seems to grasp the issues but many of Disney’s employees might not understand why people don’t like their content anymore, saying, “[Iger] said recently, you know, we’ve waited too far into politics. And now we’re going to now we’re going to not pick these controversial political fights anymore. The people, the people actually working for him who have to effectuate that plan, do not know the difference between the controversial things they believe and the uncontroversial things that they believe because they exist within a company that’s a bubble within an industry that is a bubble within a city that’s a bubble within a state that’s a bubble that entire, you know, well documented.”
Explaining why the Disney employees are having trouble understanding the issue, Boreing argued, “The right understands the left. We disagree, but we understand. The left does not understand the right. The left does not understand themselves.“
Continuing, Boreing noted just how big of a problem the woke content issue is for Disney, saying, “Disney has engaged in the greatest act of brand suicide that has probably ever happened. in recorded history, the most beloved brand, the most goodwill with the most important people, parents, on behalf of the most, the most vulnerable people, children, we, we trust Disney for three consecutive generations. We as adults trust Disney with our children. Disney helps shape the worldview of every single adult in this country. We trusted them so much that we gave them tax breaks all over the all the goodwill that came their way because they were so unique. And they created the greatest content library ever assembled in all of human history. And then they squandered it.”
Concluding his argument, Boreing explained the lesson, saying, “The, the lesson there for anybody engaged in any kind of business is, is enormous. That if you think that you are more powerful than your audience, you have completely lost the plot. And Disney has completely lost the plot. I don’t think Bob Iger can you know, can he get their share price up over time? Maybe or maybe he’ll just sell it to Apple, which is, I think, what he’s trying to sell, he’s going to sell it to Apple. Pieces sold to Apple and it’ll become even more radical because Apple can afford for a time to be disconnected from the audience.“
Watch Boreing here:
https://rumble.com/v3yxnf2-conservative-ceo-explains-where-disney-went-wrong.html?mref=1jj1ge&mc=2x0q1
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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