The Walt Disney Co. announced on August 31st that they will acquire Marvel Entertainment Inc., bringing 5,000 characters including Spider-Man and Iron Man into the Disney family. This move comes as Disney is losing its brand esteem with boys. It also lacks an internationally recognizable icon, as Mickey Mouse used to be.

As the world’s largest media and entertainment conglomerate, Disney has created pop icons like High School Musical, Hannah Montana, and Jonas Brothers in recent years. In a way, these are not just movie franchises, TV series, or boy bands; they are brands, and highly successful ones. However, they all appeal to the young girl audience. Disney realizes its brand esteem is dropping among boys. It recently re-branded the boy-focused cable network Disney XD, which already features 20 hours of Marvel TV shows every week.

As successful as these teen hits are domestically, they lack international appeal, especially in the Asian market. For years, Disney Studios have not been able to create a signature character that represents Disney. While the animated films made by Disney-owned Pixar Studio have drawn a lot of attention, they are more focused on the stories than the characters. On the other hand, movies based on Marvel comics are almost entirely character–based. Over the last few years there has always been a Marvel movie front-lining the year-end box office chart; Iron Man in 2008, Spider-Man 3 in 2007, and X-Men 3 in 2006, to name a few.

The acquisition of Marvel by Disney should result in a stronger Disney house brand, by allowing Disney to expand its target audience to include boys and young men, and to develop internationally recognized characters.

Now, will Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man manage to get along?