Niles: Will Disney or Universal own the future of entertainment?

Which entertainment brand owns the future?

For more than a generation, Disney positioned itself as the dominant brand for children’s entertainment. With movies, TV shows, toys and theme parks, Disney has provided kids countless hours of delight over its 100 years of operation.

But that has not always enough to turn children into lifelong Disney fans. Too often — for the company at least — kids would outgrow Disney and leave behind the brand. That’s why Disney long has been trying to develop entertainment for older audiences, starting with the old Touchstone and Hollywood Pictures brands and continuing with the more recent acquisitions of Lucasfilm, Marvel and Twentieth Century Fox.

While Disney has been trying to extend its brand to appeal to more grown-ups, its biggest rival has been going the other way. Once best known for horror, Universal now is making a big play for the kids, as it also tries to become the lifelong entertainment lifestyle brand that Disney has been working to create.

Don’t dismiss Universal’s chances. Its Minions franchise has earned a huge following among kids and now young adults, having become perhaps the most meme-worthy of all children’s entertainment characters. Universal’s DreamWorks Animation gives the company a deep bench of other popular franchises, including Shrek and How to Train Your Dragon, which is tipped to provide a theme of an entire land at Universal’s upcoming Epic Universe theme park in Orlando.

Universal’s theme parks are expanding into domestic markets Disney has overlooked, too. This month, Universal announced the name for the new theme park that it is building near Dallas in Texas — Universal Kids Resort.

Smaller than Universal’s current properties in Orlando and Hollywood and focused on attractions for children, the park represents Universal’s most targeted effort yet to go after the family market that Disney long has claimed for itself. It also introduces “Universal Kids” as a brand that the company may employ in that effort.

Universal long as advertised its theme parks as the destination for teens and others who have outgrown the Disney experience. One notable TV commercial even showed a young girl changing from a Disney-style princess dress into Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter house robes. Now Universal seems to have decided that it no longer is content to wait for kids to maybe outgrow Disney before trying to win them over to its parks. Get ‘em in the cradle if you want to keep them ‘til the grave.

Of course, there’s no good reason why people should remain loyal to one entertainment brand for their entire lives. As Disney is discovering this year at the box office, established franchises and brand names are not enough to keep fans buying tickets. Each individual creative work must stand on its own.

So pick and choose. Whether it is the Minions or Mickey, enjoy what speaks to you and your children, whether it comes from Disney, Universal or anywhere else. The brands that deliver that will be the ones to own the future of entertainment.