Mickey and
gang now ready-to-wear By
Lorrie Grant, USA TODAY
The images of Tinker Bell, Peg Leg
Pete, Simba and other Walt Disney characters from the
past are being given new life in a creative licensing
deal. Also available will be the changing looks of perennial
favorites Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck over the years.
Disney is opening its vault of artwork
on DisneyInkShop.com, where people can use their favorite
image to create customized apparel.
Visitors to the Web site can select
from 2,500 character images and from an assortment of
phrases associated with that character to create T-shirts,
sweat shirts, nightshirts and other tops for $19 to
$26 in sizes for adults, children and infants.
A marketing expert thinks this is
smart online retailing by Disney.
"It is a low-cost way for Disney
to give people a choice," says Erik Gordon, professor
of marketing at Johns Hopkins University. "If there
are a small number of people who like what Mickey looked
like in the Steamboat Willie days (the original
Mickey Mouse cartoon from 1928) and want a shirt, the
company doesn't have to make a lot of them, store them
in warehouses or ship them to a lot of different stores
around the country. It's a classic good use of the Web
to aggregate demand."
Computer mouse pads and posters will
be available in time for back-to-school season. Disney
also plans to add accessories and other products. The
move by Disney's consumer products division is a major
effort to gain value from the Disney archive.
"Disney has always been protective
of its artwork because of piracy concerns," says Patrick
Haley, manager of new business development for the division.
"But technology has allowed this."
Although Disney has a strong presence
with licensed merchandise in mass-market retailers,
the stores tend to avoid merchandise tied to older characters
in favor of capitalizing on broader demand for items
from a recent hit.
In addition to historical characters,
DisneyInkShop.com hopes to generate sales from goods
related to movies re-released on video and DVD, especially
classics such as Snow White.
Currently, about $15 billion in Disney
products are sold each year. (About $1 billion in sales
come from the Disney Store chain, which the company
is in talks to sell to The Children's Place.)
Though Warner Bros. and DreamWorks
are among Disney's fiercest competitors in animation,
neither has opened the doors of its art treasury to
sell customized merchandise tied to archival characters.
"A lot of companies are sitting on
intellectual property, and it's not current. There are
still people who remember the older stuff fondly, and
this is a way of gathering stuff that's gathering dust
to get income out of it," Gordon says.
Disney and embattled CEO Michael
Eisner are under shareholder pressure for results. Disney's
net income nudged up 2.4% last year to $1.3 billion
on sales of $27.1 billion. Animated films from Disney's
Studio Entertainment unit gained 10% in sales to $7.4
billion last year. The consumer products unit licenses
the Walt Disney name, characters and visual and literary
properties. |