DVDizzy Forum

disneyprincess11 wrote:And STILL no Anna and Elsa?! At this rate, Moana will be added before them

Jay wrote:Yikes Jasmine and Aurora look horrible. Ariel looks a little scary. Her eyes are all blue. And lol at Pocahontas not changing her facial expression at all.

Disney's Divinity wrote:

Jay wrote:Yikes Jasmine and Aurora look horrible. Ariel looks a little scary. Her eyes are all blue. And lol at Pocahontas not changing her facial expression at all.

Poor Pocahontas hasn't got new clipart since the 90's. They just slapped some ugly window dressing on her.

Disney's Divinity wrote:

Jay wrote:Yikes Jasmine and Aurora look horrible. Ariel looks a little scary. Her eyes are all blue. And lol at Pocahontas not changing her facial expression at all.

Poor Pocahontas hasn't got new clipart since the 90's. They just slapped some ugly window dressing on her.

MeerkatKombat wrote:

Disney's Divinity wrote:As for Jasmine - I'm gonna go with that old saying 'if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all....'
Sorry, it's hideous. My eyes, My eyes!

Kyle wrote:

MeerkatKombat wrote:

Not that I disagree, but why bother telling us your not going to say anything at all only to follow that up by calling it hideous?

Mattel has worked with Disney since 1955, when it became the first sponsor for the Mickey Mouse Club, and it’s been the company’s go-to dollmaker since 1996. Last year, Mattel put the size of its Disney Princess doll business at $300 million, though analysts at Needham say it’s closer to $500 million. With sales of Mattel’s most famous toy, 56-year-old Barbie, tumbling 20 percent from 2012 to 2014 and still falling, Princess dolls have been a much-needed revenue stream.

But not for long: The princess business disappears on Jan. 1, when Disney packs up its glass slippers and takes them to Mattel’s biggest rival, Hasbro. “Disney Princess was probably the greatest coup that Hasbro has had in the last three decades,” says Gene Del Vecchio, a former Ogilvy & Mather executive who has worked with Mattel and Disney in the past and helps Hollywood studios translate their movies into what he calls “merchandise opportunities.” Adweek likens Hasbro’s achievement to the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series.

Disney is taking a risk turning to Hasbro. Mattel owns the doll market, and despite her recent stumble, Barbie is still the best-selling doll of all time. Hasbro, meanwhile, has traditionally kept to the boys’ side of the toy aisle, with brands such as Nerf and Transformers. But it has big plans for the princesses. Hasbro and Disney are redesigning and re-releasing every Princess doll, even Pocahontas, which few stores carry. Hasbro hired a few dozen people, mostly designers and developers, who work out of its newly expanded production studio in Burbank, just minutes from Disney. “We’re going to make the Princess brand far bigger and more ubiquitous than it has been in the past,” says Brian Goldner, Hasbro’s chief executive officer.

“Every girl knows Cinderella, but there are 11 princesses,” says Andrea Hopelain, a former Disney marketing director who’s vice president for global brand strategy at Hasbro. [...] Toys “R” Us’s flagship store in Times Square is 110,000 square feet and sells toys to millions of children every year, but right before Christmas this year, it had only one Tiana toy. That will change with Hasbro. “We can reintroduce Mulan,” says Hopelain. “We can play up that Tiana is a great cook.”

Both Hasbro and Disney say they plan to highlight the princesses’ bravery and skills in future advertising, and to give the nonwhite princesses more shelf space. “A 4-year-old girl doesn’t realize how the world she lives in is different from 10 or 15 years ago, but her parents do,” says Frascotti. And parents, he points out, are the ones who buy the toys.

The prevailing wisdom at the studio was that somehow having the princesses gang together would destroy their individual mythology and therefore the value of their films,”

Several former Mattel employees point to the 2013 release of Ever After High as the last straw for Disney. Chris Sinclair, a Mattel board member who took over as CEO in January, agrees. “We got too competitive with them on Ever After High,” he says. According to Mattel’s annual report, Ever After High accounted for just $53 million in added sales last year.