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Make merchanidsing more fun!
What I called “leisurised retailing” in the early 1980s and Disney called “merchantainment” is alive and well inside Downtown Disney at Florida’s Walt Disney World as part of a new Pirates of the Caribbean themed merchandising display.
Here we find a wonderfully merchandised and engineered display of goodies to please both the young and the young at heart. Included are customisable pirate bandannas and other special park only items.
My favourite single item for the kids, which my son Max quickly took a liking to, was the Buccaneer’s Toy Gun. It had a light-up trigger area and the ability to project a pirate’s skull and crossbones on the wall. All for a mere $10!
Even more popular with the kids was the tantalising opportunity to fill a pirate’s chest or skull head with a large selection of pirate goodies including spiders, plastic jewels, compasses, special coins, tattoos and lots of other wonderful themed choices. We were able to pack over 50 items into our skull head! Guests were scoffing these items up for the price of $15.99 for the chest, or alternatively $19.99 for the skull.
Notice earlier I lead with the words “engineered display.” I really mean it because the display in the World of Disney Store at the Lake Buena Vista shopping complex includes an audio-animatronic figure that tells the maties about the wonderful treasures they can purchase.
I think the audio-animatronic figure was probably hauled out of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride when they replaced some of the figures with mock-ups of Johnny Depp. People are really fascinated with the talking pirate. This is a great use for surplus animatronics. The merchandising scheme probably is making a large contribution to paying for the ride’s renovation.
The new Pirates of the Caribbean retrofit, to tie-in with the runaway hit movies, is causing all the momentum for the pirates merchandise. I actually liked the original Pirates of the Caribbean ride better and hopefully someday it will be back. I have written many times about changes in attractions to generate new interest, but certainly the Pirates retrofit has been successful in this regard as many were queing up to go on the ride during our recent visit.
The Pirate’s theme will be merchandised even more extensively at Walt Disney World itself and will be joined with the very popular princess theme for special Pirates and Princesses parties this February.
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Dr Samuels provides diverse consulting services in general marketing and market research, facility development, customer service, safety, crowd, and event management and promotional activities programming. He can be reached at: samuelsj@mail.montclair.edu
