The four-billion-dollar Disney difference
Footnoted’s post on Disney sprawl (among other things) unfortunately brought back some painful memories of an ill-fated trip to Disney World.
I was working for a for-profit university and our task was to fly to Disney World to investigate the possibility of hosting a student event there. Even though I’m pretty anti-Disney, I’m not, say, a Miss Trunchbull, so I used the free ticket there as an excuse to take my then-seven-year-old daughter.
She was thrilled, of course, but had to endure a day and a half of meetings with grown-ups.
I cannot even begin to describe the idiocracy of those meetings.
And the sales guys.
Since we would be bringing quite a large group of attendees, they were willing to bend over backwards for us: shrink-wrapping the Disney buses with our logo, adding desks to about 300 of their guest rooms, and concealing the life-sized fake-town backdrop at the “extreme stunt show” on a backlot of Disney-MGM Studios.
When they took us to lunch, it was “on the mouse.” If I heard Well, that’s the Disney difference! one more time, I was going to throw up.
Anyway, my favorite moment was when one of the sales guys leaned down to my daughter:
Sales guy: So, who’s your favorite Disney Princess, honey?
Daughter: Umm . . . (looks frantically at her mother) . . . I don’t know.
Sales guy: Oh, it’s so hard to choose just one, isn’t it?
Me: No, that’s not it. She doesn’t know who you are talking about.
Sales guy:
Today Disney spends four billion dollars marketing Disney princesses to girls. And babies. And brides. And everyone else. Amazon.com lists no fewer than 7,806 Disney Princess “products.”
My daughter and I stayed an extra day at Disney World (it rained). Disney did not get that event contract with us. And I can guarantee that I’ll never set foot in Disney World again.
November 27th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
That story about your daughter not knowing who the Disney Princesses are made me laugh. I would love to have seen the look on that guy’s face!
I had a similar experience once with my daughter when she was asked to identify one of them. She had no clue. This was a few years ago. Today, at age seven with no TV and never having seen a Disney Princess movie, she has somehow nonetheless figured how to recognize a Disney Princess, but she still doesn’t know who’s who. But that shows you how pervasive the marketing is. It seeps in somehow.
I am dreading having to make the exodus to Disney. My kids have heard about it from friends and desperately want to go. I do not. They know so little about it though, that they call it “Bisnee” (it’s kind of cute) and I have not corrected them!
November 27th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Lisa, I’m curious … I assume that occasionally your children are invited to a Princess-themed birthday party or some similar event. What do you do on those occasions?
November 27th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Hey Juliet! Thanks for writing. Surprisingly, my girls have been invited to only one princess party, and that was years ago. If they did, of course they could go. But I won’t let them have one themselves. Does that sound cruel? It hasn’t been a problem yet. My girls seem to be more the horse and dinosaur types.
Mom Unplugged — My second daughter, now six, knows some of the princesses too. She called them the “three ladies” for a long time, but now it seems she’s calling them the “six ladies.”
November 28th, 2007 at 9:35 am
I don’t think it sounds cruel at all. Horse parties can be totally fun. I can’t even remember my parties having a theme, but I do remember them being lots of fun.
Though now, I’m an Ariel girl (we both have red hair).
November 28th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Juliet, you’ve just made an excellent point — why do the parties now have themes? And most are based on brand-extension characters (Disney characters, Nemo, Shrek). We can’t get away from it!
And you can be any Disney Princess you want to be (Ariel’s a princess?) — I have no worries about you.
November 28th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
hmm, I actually enjoy the disney stuff, had no problem getting my daughter the princess stuff, and, at 9, her favorite characters are still the ones she creates (and they aren’t very girly at that).
and most of the parties she’s been invited to haven’t been themed, except they tend to be at someplace, rather than at someone’s home (chuck e cheese, red cedar gymnastics, there was one dress up party at Treehouse Toys, so I guess that’s themed, a nature center, the zoo, YMCA…)
But then, while I allow her to watch the stuff, I also have explained the point of a commercial to her, so she understands that its designed to make her think she wants something she doesn’t need. And she’s smart enough to get that.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Navi, that’s great. I think all kids should be taught the nature of commercials. It’s the younger ones (less than 6) who can’t fully understand that a commerical is trying to sell them something.
Thanks for stopping by!
November 29th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
My offspring are quite a bit older than yours, but what memories: All-time worst birthday party my daughter ever went to was a scavenger hunt at Mall of America. Use your imagination: Ten 10-year-olds running around like maniacs trying to find a plastic fork from the Rainforest Cafe, a Dairy Queen napkin, a Lego, and for all I know, a book of matches from Hooters. Let’s count how many things were wrong about all that!
On the other hand, you’ve reminded me of one of the better birthday parties we had, one that my daughter still remembers fondly: I hid some stuff in the woods by our house (I know, I know) and then during the party I gave the kids clues and they had to figure out how to go through the trails and find the junk I had hidden down there. (YES, I went with them.) I vaguely recall (gasp!) flashlights, so maybe it was around dusk.
I really hadn’t thought about it in these terms, but that was the kind of stuff we should have done more of–the anti-consumer-theme-based party. (Next year she turns 21, and I fear that the corporate sponsor will be Michelob or Bacardi.)
December 4th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
I love that she didn’t know the Disney princesses.
I did actually decline an invite to my child for a 4-y-o birthday party that was billed as “come as your favorite princess” - because it offended me, but also because I can’t stand the kids or their mom. I guess I’m a mean mommy.
But it comes back and bites me - this year, someone gave her a disembodied Ariel head for hairdressing.