Hard to tell if the management of Disney Corp. is more dopey or goofy but they certainly are woke and fast going broke. A new poll finds that only 33 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the entertainment giant.
We blogged in April about the precipitous decline in Disney’s stock price after management of the entertainment giant, long known for wholesome family entertainment, decided that it was a good idea for schools to provide instruction in adult topics to kindergarteners.
Or to put it another way, while Disney movies may contain warnings like Parental Guidance (PG), Disney has no tolerance for parental guidance, that is parental involvement, when it comes to classroom instruction.
This, of course, is just the latest in the company’s campaign of woke activism. But now it has caught up with them. The favorability ratings of Disney have collapsed. A new NBC Poll shows that only 33 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Disney Corp while 30 percent have an unfavorable view of the company. That’s a +3 percent favorability rating.
Contrast that with Disney’s ratings just last year. A poll last year found that Disney was viewed favorably by 77 percent of American adults versus just 21 percent with an unfavorable view of the company. That’s a +56 percent favorability rating.
The 44 percent decline in the company’s favorability is huge. However, the real story is even worse.
None of these polls break out Disney’s ratings among parents versus non-parents. Parents and their kids tend to be major consumers of Disney’s products. Parents tend to be more conservative on most issues than non-parents. As a result, it is reasonable to assume that Disney’s approval ratings among parents are even worse than the dismal 33 percent in the NBC poll.
Woke activism is destroying Disney’s reputation among its core customer base.
Another measure of how badly Disney’s wore management has tarnished the company’s reputation is to compare Disney’s +3 favorability rating with other industries and companies.
According to Gallup, Disney Corp is less popular than banks (+14 favorability) or electric and gas utilities (+6) and only slightly more popular than airlines (+1) or attorneys (-4). As for the latter, when your management takes your company’s image from that of an American cultural icon to that of Dewey Cheatem and Howe Attorneys at Law, you have a very big problem.
By going woke, Disney management has changed the company’s image from as pure and good as Snow White to a company as creepy and conniving as the Evil Queen. Walt Disney would have been horrified at what his company has become. One wonders if the current management even cares.