To an entertainment company that operates on Disney's model, all the entertainment they make - the cartoon shows on their TV channels and the movies - are often understood by the suits to be not the real product at all. Just as music is not the main product to a rock musician in a concert. To all these venturesome entrepreneurs, the real product is the merchandise - untold worlds of stuff with the Disney stamp on them, and for the concert artists, rock musician memorabilia, sunglasses, key rings and hats. A movie at Disney gets made for the artistry in the idea certainly, but the degree to which a movie concept lends itself to having dolls, soft toys and theme park rides spun off, is doubtless a major consideration too. The latest hand-drawn Disney hit, 'The Princess and the Frog', filled with unmistakable Disney touches in cuddly creatures and musical heroines, passes the merchantability test very well. Disney merchandise from the movie that opened recently is flying off the shelves this Christmas.
The movie features a heroine who is notable for being Disney's first African-American Princess, a part of a long and venerable line of Disney princesses. Disney merchandise in the princess line is a $4 billion business for the company. And Tiana is outselling all other princesses this season. Disney opened for the movie with Tiana dolls, hair and makeup sets, bed and bath products and books for all ages. Princess bedding has been selling about three times as much as Mickey Mouse bedding these past weeks at Disney stores this week. Tiana merchandise is particularly strong as a Christmas gift too. Disney has been trying to really promote the movie among African-Americans. Disney has had a presence sponsoring all kinds of black cultural events, like Atlanta's Blogalicioius conference and Louisiana's Essence Music Festival in New Orleans (especially relevant, that one, seeing how the movie itself is set in that city). And, as the ultimate gesture, Disney showed up at the White House, to gift President Obama's two daughters with their own copy of the movie on DVD. But Disney executives find they have almost no work to do promoting Tiana products. Children who show up at Disney stores around the country to pick the shelves clean seem to know far more about the characters in the movie than Disney executives themselves.
In the lead-up to Christmas, people are concerned just with making sure that no Disney merchandise that they have an eye on, gets sold out in the gift buying season. If you want to put a figure on it, Princess Tiana dolls have sold in excess of 50,000 units so far. And Princess Tiana costumes are outselling all other Princess costumes at Disney stores too. The Princess and the Frog series of videos on YouTube is dedicated to telling the story behind the Disney merchandise that comes from the movie and of course, you can follow Tiana on Twitter and end with a bunch of great Disney merchandise from the movie. How can it get better than that?
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