Introduction
Walt Disney had his vision of the Disney company and ideal America, and not many symbols represent the American culture better than Disneyland. He and his successors used these ideas to construct Disneyland and the empire, where each product promotes the others. This unique strategy of advertisement is used by other companies as well, which follows the footsteps of Disney and add their own ways of promoting and managing entertaining products, with one example being Universal Studios. Universal Studios created a theme park that does not leverage Disney’s approach to the synergy of different products, where one element promotes the others but focused on showing the behind the scenes of movie production.
Disneyland Overview
Disney’s strategy for product development and promotion is based on synergy. Synergy is an output of several agents, which produce something greater than the sum of these agents. According to Anderson, Disney’s products were “a tangle of advertising and entertainment” (18). Each product Disney created promoted the entire company and everything Disney produced. In the 1950s, Disney’s management viewed television as an important element of this structure, which would allow them to draw more attention to the other products of this company (Anderson, 18). By using the success of their television show, Disney found investment and draw attention to its amusement park.
Disneyland in suburban California was constructed because of the popularity that Disney’s TV specials had. The company used the two episodes as leverage in their negotiations with TV networks (Anderson, 18). Their main condition for continuing to film and air this show was a $500 million investment in the construction of the new park. This example shows the loop that the company created between its products, with one supporting the construction and popularity of the other. However, apart from profits, Disney’s goal was to create an economic and cultural phenomenon, based on Walt Disney’s vision (Anderson, 19). Moreover, this phenomenon had to be beyond other communication means that existed before. But most importantly, Disneyland is both a representation of American values and a phenomenon that affected the state’s culture.
Moreover, Disney leveraged TV again during the construction process, since Disneyland aired the process of constructing the park. As Anderson puts it, this company was able to “unite the disparate realms of Disney empire” (20). Moreover, Disney’s films and Disneyland were ideal products for the post-WWII audience, young families with children, the number of which continuously increased. Hence, this theme park and Disney’s strategy fitted perfectly into the social and cultural landscape of the 1960s, and other film production companies followed Disney’s steps and created their own theme parks.
Universal World
An alternative to Disneyland was constructed by another media giant — Universal Pictures. In terms of synergy, Universal World also leverages the power of Universal Picture’s other products. This amusement park offers people who have seen the movies to spend time exploring locations built to resemble these films, for example, the jungles similar to those in “Jurassic World.” Here, the movie serves as a promotion for the park, while the park may encourage visitors who have never seen “Jurassic World” to see this movie. However, Universal has never used Disney’s strategy with its TV series to promote its theme park.
In “Dream Factory Tours: The Universal Pictures Movie Tour Attraction in the 1960s,” Blackwood explores the history of Universal Studios’ theme park’s success. Backwood traced the history of the entertainment park since 1963 when it was first opened (1). Notably, Universal Studios was created first as an attraction for movie fans who wanted to see the sites where films are made. Hence, they could ride across the places where Universal filmed its products, and the initial idea was to allow the fans of Universal’s films and TV series to tour the studio. Later on, Universal has changed its strategy and incorporated many elements that resemble Disneyland’s approach.
Universal Studios did not use its products to promote its theme park in the same way that Disney did. For example, Anderson argues that Disney filmed the “Disneyland” TV series to promote the park (21). This was an entertainment for young families with children, the core audience of ABC network that aired this TV series. Next, Universal chose to focus on specific movies that are familiar to the view instead of dividing the park into zones based on themes. Disney, however, chose to have four sections, including fantasy, adventures, science fiction, and westerns, both in its theme park and the TV series (Anderson, 21). Undoubtedly, Disney’s management used a unique approach and techniques to craft this empire, but Universal took advantage of many of these strategies as well.
Universal does not use its TV or film series as a way of promoting its theme park. Rather, the park is an extension of the cinematic experience. Unlike Disney, which used its TV series on the ABC network to show a new audience its old cartoons and films and promote Disneyland as a continuation of this experience, Universal does not have a tool that would allow the company to do the same. Here, no distinction between “entertainment and advertisement” was made by Disney (Anderson, 23). Disney produced a TV series, which used the company’s library of films as the basis, talked about the amusement park, shown behind the scenes of new releases while providing viewers with some useful general facts and the company’s history.
Universal Studios park does not work well in totality, the way that Disney’s products do. It appears that Universal’s theme park is a separate entity, which has a connection with the films that the studio provides but is developed as a separate business. The lack of this connection between the studio’s output, promotion, and theme park is the main difference between Universal and Disney. Disney, however, seamlessly integrated Disneyland into the rest of its films, TV series, and products, showing that all of these are the same experiences.
This studio used a different tool to attract visitors and create a distinct phenomenon — the interest of people in celebrities and movie production. According to Blackwood, in the 1950s, there were several popular places in California where visitors could experience the charm of Holywood, including “Beverly Hills region, the star walk along Hollywood Boulevard and hand-printed hall of fame at Grauman’s Chinese Theater” (2). The studio leverage the consumer’s desire to become a part of the cinematic process and created its first studio tours, where visitors could walk through the places where Universal’s movies were shot.
Universal used many ideas and approaches invented by Disney to set up its first theme park. Blackwood even compares Disneyland to Universal Studios by stating that the latter “was unique in its attempt to represent a ‘behind-the-scenes’ look at filmmaking and television production” while the former was the first film-based theme park (4). Later, Universal borrowed many techniques used in Disneyland. However, this theme park still had its distinct feature — it was known for showing the mechanics of the movie business and the behind-the-scene process, while Disney’s focus was on creating a fairytale experience.
Disney created a new social and cultural trend, while Universal followed the change in consumer demand. In terms of the vision for this theme park, Blackwood argues that its creation was a response to the declining audience of the motion picture business, from 90 million viewers per week in the 1950s to only 60 million in the 1960s (1). Hence, the studios had to use innovation and creativity to attract viewers and ensure that they receive profits. For Disney, Disneyland appears to be a continuation of Walt Disney’s vision for the company, and this theme park integrated into the other products of the company.
The movie industry’s leaders wanted to create interactive and immersive experiences for the viewers (Blackwood, 4). Before creating Universal Studios theme park, the company was bought by MCA, and the new management took an approach that emphasized business over exploration of potential cultural phenomena. However, the creation of a theme park was not solely motivated by business objectives, since Universal held tours in its studios since its establishment in 1915 (Blackwood, 4). The visitors could see the stunts from the film performed in front of them and the production area. Therefore, with this theme park, the business objectives, cultural trends of the 1960s, and the distinct feature of Universal Studios were combined.
Influence on American Culture
Despite the variety of popular films it had, Universal affected the American culture to a lesser degree compared to Disney. The origins of this studio and the concept for the theme park were aimed at creating a “film city,” where visitors can experience the process of movie production first hand (Blackwood, 10). But this concept was later changed, partially due to Disneyland’s impact on the industry and due to the integration of audio into movies, which put restrictions on the ability to have visitors in the film production areas.
However, Universal historically has been more focused on the movie business and the mechanics of movie production. Disney’s main influence on the culture is the “total merchandising” strategy (Anderson, 31). Moreover, Disney created a blueprint for the other companies working in the media industry by showing how the products of the studio can complement one another. Blackwood (2017) argues that Universal Studios leveraged the rise of “film tourism” popularity rather than created a trend for such as cultural phenomenon. Hence, Universal affected the culture by showing the viewers how films are made and allowing them to visit cites that resemble the scenery of their films.
Conclusion
Overall, both Disney and Universal Studios created theme parks as a continuation of their vision for the companies, but the tools they used differed. Universal’s vision is more narrow, focusing on movies that have had great success and on showing the different sides of movie production. However, Disney created a cultural phenomenon that leaves space for new products that the company may release in the future. Universal used some of Disney’s techniques and added new ones but did not create a cultural phenomenon.
Work Cited
Anderson, Christopher. Disneyland. MIT. 2020. Web.
Blackwood, G. “Dream Factory Tours: The Universal Pictures Movie Tour Attraction in the 1960s.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, pp. 1–20, 2017.