Marketing Genius: Disney Princess

The folks over at Disney are marketing geniuses. If any of you have been to Target any time recently and have girls, you have likely encountered the ubiquity of the Disney Princess line. Who are these princesses, you ask? Well, Clio will tell you: they are Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, and (last and certainly least,) Snow White. As background, let me just mention that Clio has seen The Little Mermaid a handful of times and Cinderella twice, but has not been introduced to the others through their stories or movies. No matter: this is where the genius comes in. By packaging all of these princesses together, Disney is capturing the attention of little girls through their favorite character (in our case, Ariel), and making them covet merchandise of each and every one of these "princesses" through the power of association.

Here's how it worked on us: Before school started, I foolishly allowed Clio to pick out her own lunch box and backpack. Despite my best efforts at the store to steer her towards non-branded items, she discerningly found her way to a backpack featuring Ariel-- and all five of the other, aforementioned Disney heroines. Then she found the matching lunchbox. And thermos. And sneakers.

When you do a search for "Disney Princess" on the Target website, there are 347 matches. There are Disney Princess coloring books, balls, and bicycles; polyester nightgowns, halloween costumes, and wigs; bedding collection and wallpaper borders; porcelain soap dishes and plastic pumpkin-carving kits (no joke.) Near the checkout at Target, hanging nice and low (just about 3-year old eye level), there are figurines of each of these princesses; before, admittedly, Clio wanted Ariel and Cinderella, but now she would like them all. Six little five-dollar figurines.

Here's what else I find interesting (insidious?) about the whole thing: like the makers of GI Joe, Cabbage Patch Kids, and other toys making a generational comeback, Disney is very smartly going after thirty-something parents, but also grandparents, just in case they have not hit the children over the head quite effectively enough. On the back of the shoebox in which we brought home the Princess sneakers, there is this little tidbit:

Once Upon a Time,
there was a land where
wishes always came true.
You've been there.
It's the land of
the Disney princesses.
And for generations of
dreamers it's been the place...

...where dreams begin

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves debuted in 1937; Sleeping Beauty in 1959. By grouping all of these characters together, the nostalgia of generations of women is turning into a cash cow, like spinning straw into gold (I suppose Disney never did Rumplestiltskin, huh?) And kids who might otherwise only have seen the contemporary movies will suddenly revive interest in those older films. Like the 50th anniversary edition of Sleeping Beauty I just bought at Blockbuster.

There is good news for us, though. This morning we went garage saleing (yes, it is a verb), partly because I need some trays to hold makeup and hair accessories on the top of my dresser and--clearly--I can not go to Target one more time, and partly because I got this idea in my head of giving Clio a dollar or two and letting her pick something out, much as my mother used to do for us. Guess what we found?

A baggie full to bursting with Disney Princess figurines.

I had Clio go up to the proprietor and ask how much. She then, shyly, handed over a dollar bill, and the rest of the day revolved around Cinderella, TWO Snow Whites, Sleeping Beauty with Merryweather, Flora, and Fauna; and--to a lesser degree- Pocahontas and the odd Cruella Deville, both of whom Clio designated as boys and relegated to a bottom shelf.

(Here they are, taking some fresh air and being introduced to Rody, the bouncy horse.)


While Dave may not approve of any of the Disney paraphernalia, even if we got a great deal, I love how excited Clio got over this find, how much she loves these little dolls. And, I hate to admit it, but I can't wait to watch Sleeping Beauty with my daughter, and tell her once again that this was the first movie I saw in the theater, at Cina 4 in West Saint Paul, that my brother and I loved it so much that our Dad let us stay for a double feature, that he forgot to call my mom and inform her of this fact, and that I will never forget the beauty and the drama of that day.

Because not only am I the target demographic, I am also a sucker.