How do studios use franchises to create synergy?

How do studios use franchises to create synergy? The main technique of making money, employed by studios is synergy through creating a franchise and building upon it, through sequels, merchandise etc. Studios use horizontal integration to build up a wide range and variety of products and exploit certain franchises to make as much money as possible. Horizontal integration is the consolidation of holdings across multiple industries, and through the ownership of many different media outlets, conglomerates are able to sell the same product many times, in different formats. Therefore, synergy is created through the method of horizontal integration, as studios go over the top and make plenty of franchise related merchandise, such as games, books and clothes, to sell their franchise and generate more money. One such company that has employed horizontal integration successfully is the Walt Disney Company, as they have become one of the largest corporations in the world with revenue of roughly $42 billion. The Walt Disney Company has many other studios branched off of it, supporting the horizontal integration structure and allows for synergy to take place. Disney Pictures, Disney Interactive Studios and Disney Consumer Products are just a few of the studios that the Walt Disney Company actually own. Just by these three studios it is clear how synergy is used, as the franchise is built up through Walt Disney Pictures, making millions of dollars, and then Disney Consumer Products can produce merchandise and consumer products based on the franchise and thus Disney have created synergy through their methods of horizontal integration. Furthermore, Disney has acquired franchises such as Marvel and Star Wars, allowing them to create more synergy, as they will make films from these franchises, and then abuse the films and exploit them to create more synergy, by making more consumer products from these franchises. Also, the Walt Disney Company own significant television channels, such as ABC, ESPN and have a share in Hulu, so this only further demonstrates how large Disney is, as they have branched out to many media outlets, and by owning these stations, it allows them to easily advertise and sell their franchises through these channels. Disney owns many TV channels, such as Disney XD and Disney Junior, in which they own plenty TV shows, and through their owning of those channels, they can easily advertise for their own products, such as their films. Also, through their own TV shows they can create even more synergy, as they can make merchandise off of these TV franchises and video games that they know children will want to spend money on. By using horizontal integration, there are many benefits, such as financial stability because they can bring in sufficient amounts of money through many outlets, so if a film doesn’t do well, the company will not suffer, unlike how they would through vertical integration. One such franchise that the Walt Disney Company owns, through Walt Disney Pictures and Marvel is the Iron Man franchise, which is also part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe retained by Disney. This franchise has successfully created synergy for the Walt Disney Studios, as it has branched out over many formats, by use of horizontal integration. The first Iron Man films has spawned two sequels and helped to gain the overall marvel franchise popularity as they built up to the Avengers film, grossing even more money. Just by the making of a few Iron Man films, Disney have used horizontal integration through many of their other studios, to create synergy by making different variations of Iron Man products, such as the Iron Man video games, which people will go and buy after seeing the films. Furthermore, Disney have cleverly produced many consumer products to sell in their Disney stores, such as Iron Man fancy dress, face masks, key chains etc., thus creating even more synergy from their film franchise. In addition, the release of these films has helped the comic books to resurface and gain popularity once again, forming further money, and also there have been book adaptations of the films themselves, further expanding on the franchise. There have been cartoon adaptation of Iron Man too, so once again, showing how Disney can easily create synergy by producing adaptations and spin offs etc., by using one of their most successful franchises.