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In revitalizing the Magic Kingdom, the CEO has built a compelling case that integrated, cross-platform media leviathans like Disney still make sense in the Digital Age.
作者：Richard Siklos
Bob Iger is inside the Royal Festival Hall in London on a September afternoon, geeking out with some young guys about two of his favorite things: tunes and technology. The CEO of Walt Disney Co. pulls out his iPhone and thumbs through his playlists, looking for a particular live U2 track from an Italian concert. Briefly the conversation is drowned out by the squeals of teen girls standing behind a nearby barricade of security guards and velvet ropes. "They're screaming for me," Iger says, glancing up.
He's joking, well aware that they're really screaming for his companions: Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas, a.k.a. the Jonas Brothers. The collectible-lunchbox-cute trio, with a median age of 18, are pop heartthrobs who a few weeks earlier became the first musical act ever to occupy three spots in the Billboard top-ten album chart in a single week.
They're in London to promote their Disney Channel TV movie "Camp Rock." And Iger is there - along with requisite Mickey and Minnie mascots working the red carpet outside.
Not only do the Jonas Brothers sell bushels of CDs and downloads via Disney's Hollywood Records label; in the past year they have performed live before more than a million people, were fixtures on Radio Disney, released a book via Disney-owned Hyperion that has already sold 750,000 copies, and are preparing to star in a Disney feature film. On the Disney Channel, their own show is scheduled to debut in the spring. Action figures, T-shirts, throw pillows, and sheet sets are just the beginnings of the retail onslaught.
The Jonas Brothers neatly fit Disney's tween machine: They are polite, reputedly abstinent boys, whose father is a musician and former pastor and whose mother is a former singer-actress. On the other hand, as their father, Kevin, 43, points out, "they are not characters" - his boys were not "imagineered" in any Disney product lab; they've been playing and writing their own music for years. (Rolling Stone called their latest release "as assured as any American rock album released in 2008.")
Just two years ago the boys were signed to Sony's (SNY) Columbia label and playing mostly to friends. The breakout stardom and screaming girls and the private jet across the pond would not have been possible, their father says, without Disney. "This is the natural place for them to be," he says.
The Jonases are emblematic of a creative and financial revival at the Magic Kingdom that has taken place over the roughly three years since Iger became CEO. Against long odds, Disney (DIS, Fortune 500) is back at the head of a frazzled and uncertain bunch, the fraternity of media conglomerates. In revitalizing the company, Iger has built a compelling case that integrated, cross-platform leviathans like his still make sense in the Digital Age. Who knew?