Disney Merchandising Will Top $30 Billion in 2008
June 12, 2008 by Susan Gunelius
Filed under Brand Extension, Brand Strategy
I suppose it comes as no surprise that Disney merchandising sales are expected to reach $30 billion in 2008 (up from $27 billion in 2007 and representing a 100% increase over the past five years). We’ve all seen the Hanna Montana merchandise at Wal-Mart and the High School Musical, Cars and Disney Princess products everywhere you turn.
Disney is not shy about its brand strategy - saturate the market with each sub-brand then move on to the next one.
The International Industry Merchandiser’s Association ranks Disney merchandise as the world’s top licensor. Disney should be making big bucks from its merchandising efforts. The question is - will consumers ever get so inundated with the Disney brand that they’ll turn their backs on it? That’s a reality that all brands face, but so far, Disney has been immune to the threat.
What do you think? Will the day ever come when the Disney brand becomes so in-your-face that it becomes utterly distasteful, or worse yet - irrelevant, to the masses?
Image: Flickr
With so many sub brands, I guess it will be difficult to overwhelm customers. If they slapped Disney all over everything it would be different. I wonder if the $30 billion includes the licensing agreements of ABC or ESPN? Just a thought…
As your post and James mentioned, the variety of sub brands has insulated Disney from over-saturation and I expect will continue to do so. As long as they continue to be relatively tasteful when licensing, I don’t think they’ll see any backlash.