The Orlando Sentinel reminds us of what the Walt Disney Company has known since the first Mickey Mouse Club merchandise hit the shelves; the real money is in product tie-ins.
The Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday it expects retail sales of its
merchandise to jump 10 percent this fiscal year to $23 billion, driven
in part by demand for products tied to its summer movies including the
Pixar film Cars.
$23 billion? Is that a typo?
In the modern era The Lion King was the first film to be know as much for its merchandise profits as for the box office. Disney overdid it for awhile, but now they’re back with a ton of Cars products. I know my house has spent more than we thought we would on the cute Cars characters.
I know what you mean. My three year old knew the characters by name before the movie even came out. We have Cars cereal, Kleenex and Go-gurt. Just now while watching Nickolodeon 3 of the 5 commercials were Cars merchandise or tie-ins.
My son walks around with his three Cars cars and will remind me about every 20 minutes that “This is Lightening McQueen, he’s built for speed. This is a tow truck called Mater. This is Doc’s cousin.” He refuses to accept my attempts at making him say “Hudson”.
I’ve even seen ads with Cars hawking auto insurance. They’ve got so many tie-ins they could make Superman blush.
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