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Disney’s Taylor Swift Era

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Re: Disney’s Taylor Swift Era

#41

Post by duxup »

alexpotato wrote: post #19

I remember reading the following quote about music in the 1950s and 60s: "Prior to this era, there was no distinction between music adults and teenagers listened to. E.g. Frank Sinatra was popular with multiple age demographics. Starting in the late 1950s, being a cool teenager meant that you liked music that was different than what your parents listened to. This was first seen with rock and roll." It's interesting t…

I certainly saw the claimed fracturing of music along various demographic lines but I always wondered how true it was.

It certainly felt that way and it was talked about... but people I knew always listened to a variety of music. The running joke on Youtube about something like Wilson Philips "Hold on" was that "Somewhere out there there's is rocking out to this song".

I don't doubt there were differences among demographics, but I also wonder how much we as humans look for those lines and exaggerate them. I honestly didn't even know who Taylor Swift was for an embarrassingly long time and I yet enjoyed her songs when I heard them. I wonder if for most of the masses it really doesn't matter, but enthusiasts and marketers are the folks who care / notice the differences that might not ever have been THAT stark.

Re: Disney’s Taylor Swift Era

#42

Post by [deleted] »

dj_gitmo wrote: post #11

> I had friends who went to the first show, and I think she played 45 songs — it was 3+ hours ... She’s sold out 6 straight shows here in Los Angeles I'm surprised it is physically possible to sing for 3 hours, 6 nights in a row.

[deleted]

Re: Disney’s Taylor Swift Era

#43

Post by ballenf »

riffraff wrote: post #13

I never understood the "Disney's differentiator are their theme park". We didn't have a theme park in all of Europe until the '90s, but the whole continent grew up with Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck.

The average American kid in the 90s never had a chance to go either, but knowing that Disneyland is a real place changes your perspective or relationship with the content. It feels more real and more permanent. Knowing that millions of people are going and have gone to a real place where the characters "live" sets them apart.

That's my take anyway. It would be interesting to know the % of kids in the US that have been to a Disney park at various points in time. My wild guess is that the number has always been well under 10%.

Re: Disney’s Taylor Swift Era

#44

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

Disney and Taylor Swift have another thing in common:

They have built a substantial portion of the worth from forming very close emotional bonds with girls from a young age.

There are a millions of women who have not just grown up with Disney princesses, but grew up with a very emotional bond to them.

Shrek may be good, but nobody wants to be Shrek and Fiona, the way girls want to be Ariel, Belle, and Elsa.

Re: Disney’s Taylor Swift Era

#45

Post by badosu »

racl101 wrote: post #8

I still could not accurately identify one of her songs by audio if my life depended on it OR if someone offered me $100 million I'd definitely lose out on that money. Yet, she is the biggest popstar on the planet. It's weird, somehow she is everywhere in image and presence but the art she produces eludes me. On the other hand, there are catchy songs like the Benny Hill theme that I know by heart, yet I could not name…

I don't understand why you're being downvoted, I share the same sentiment. I don't know a single Taylor Swift song and I couldn't for my life know for sure a song from her, I'd probably be thinking of her or Katy Perry.

Re: Disney’s Taylor Swift Era

#46

Post by thebooktocome »

spiderice wrote: post #26
dj_gitmo wrote: post #11

> I had friends who went to the first show, and I think she played 45 songs — it was 3+ hours ... She’s sold out 6 straight shows here in Los Angeles I'm surprised it is physically possible to sing for 3 hours, 6 nights in a row.

I wonder if it is partially lip syncing. Apparently when Celine Dion was performing nightly in Vegas she mixed lip syncing in to her performances to give her voice a break. (I don’t have a source on that, just something I remember hearing years and years ago)

I don’t think she’s substantially lip-syncing (maybe here and there, but not continuously). I was at the Detroit show and she confessed to having a bit of a cold during the interim into Evermore. And indeed, she coughed and sniffled a bit during other songs it was picked up by her mic. She also got a little short of breath during heavy dance numbers.

Maybe I’m easily fooled, but if she was lip-syncing a lot I don’t think they’d leave these imperfections.

Re: Disney’s Taylor Swift Era

#47

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

Shrezzing wrote: post #18

> Taylor Swift doesn’t understand supply and demand: I think that's a poor reading of Swift & her team. They've clearly got a rock-solid understanding of supply & demand, and other economic concepts, to the extent that their behaviour subverts textbook economic thinking. Spotify acts like a textbook perfectly competitive marketplace: all actors have perfect information, there are no monopolies, the market price for a…

> Taylor Swift doesn’t understand supply and demand:

That statement is even more laughable when you realize that she is one of the most financially savvy people, and both her mother and father worked in the financial industry.

Re: Disney’s Taylor Swift Era

#48

Post by rospaya »

WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: post #14
racl101 wrote: post #8

I still could not accurately identify one of her songs by audio if my life depended on it OR if someone offered me $100 million I'd definitely lose out on that money. Yet, she is the biggest popstar on the planet. It's weird, somehow she is everywhere in image and presence but the art she produces eludes me. On the other hand, there are catchy songs like the Benny Hill theme that I know by heart, yet I could not name…

> I still could not accurately identify one of her songs by audio if my life depended on it OR if someone offered me $100 million I'd definitely lose out on that money. Lies.

If you don't listen to the radio, how could you hear them? I'm probably in the only demographic that doesn't have swifties, most people my age streams movies and uses adblockers so I honestly couldn't identify a song by her if I didn't write her name in Youtube just to see what the deal is.

Music is so fragmented these days that there's no comparison to Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones days.

M/30+/not the US

Re: Disney’s Taylor Swift Era

#49

Post by bronikowski »

irrational wrote: post #32
riffraff wrote: post #13

I never understood the "Disney's differentiator are their theme park". We didn't have a theme park in all of Europe until the '90s, but the whole continent grew up with Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck.

I think I remember while reading about Carl Barks that it was through comic books, right? Maybe that is another differentiator.

Comics were popular but even behind Iron Curtain we had all the Disney stuff, starting from the Snow White ending on Duck Tales, Rescue Rangers, Donald and Mickey shorts. It was as common as dirt for kids in Poland.

Re: Disney’s Taylor Swift Era

#50

Post by gumby »

The connection with Disney in the title seemed weird but it makes sense. The nut of his thesis is that we don't actually want to live our whole lives online, though things that are easier there (say buying singles) won't return to the real world.

Two two revenue moat opportunities: 1 - physical experiences and 2 - customer "investment" drives enthusiasm, as a kind of brand-fueled sunk cost fallacy.

Successful b2c businesses understand point 2, but the cool thing is that it can be supercharged through point 1 (if you have such a business...doordash is out of luck on this one; WeWork pretended that they were trying it).

Disney is interesting - the business is a survivor. Iger was smart to come back and turn around the Chapek disaster, but I get the feeling he doesn't know where to go from there. But even under Chapek they didn't forget the importance of IRL:

I have an extended family relative who works in film distribution with Disney. Even during Covid when they furloughed or laid off lots of people and focused on streaming, they didn't lay him off, which seemed odd to me (it's not like he is a VP, and theatres were closed). A few times we talked about the film business and his belief was straightforward: streaming doesn't make meaningful money while a film in a cinema can do hundreds of millions of dollars. I was dubious (I hate the cinema and the whole "movie" experience) but Barbenheimer is a good example of why I'm probably wrong.

So then when you look at Walt Disney's drawing included in the article, you see a semicircle of "experiences": parks, films, and (underexploited by Disney) concerts, and semicircle of "reinforcement" so your brand remains front of mind: streaming, toys and other in-home products. That's where you can get the pushme-pullyou. So streaming can be a winner even if it's run at a loss.

Meanwhile what's dying is ESPN, ABC, and the general TV business, dragging Disney down.

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