Disney believes in the selling power of fairies
Thursday, November 11, 2004
She's spunky, sassy and dishes out attitude. But can Tinker Bell and her fairy dust captivate girls the same way Walt Disney Co.'s princesses do?
Disney repackaged Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle and the Little Mermaid into a multibillion-dollar brand called "Disney Princess" in just three years. Now it's trying to repeat that success with a new franchise starring Peter Pan's mischievous sidekick and a new gang of fairy pals.
Disney says its research shows that Tinker Bell has remained a popular character, despite little exposure in recent years. Last year's live-action movie version of "Peter Pan," which wasn't produced by Disney, did little to promote the waif. But Disney says girls and young women still warm to her "sassy" attitude, style and looks.
Seeking to build some early awareness of the brand, Disney plans to put on a glitzy screening of the original "Peter Pan" movie in Los Angeles tonight. The company hopes the "Disney Fairies" line of illustrated books, animated movies, branded clothing and fairy dolls aimed at the fiercely competitive six- to nine-year-old market for girls can pull in retail sales of more than $1 billion within three to five years.
One key to the new fairy franchise is giving Tinker Bell a new story line. Fantasy author Gail Carson Levine, who penned the children's bestseller "Ella Enchanted," was brought on board to develop a story together with Disney illustrators. The result: a high-end book with glossy illustrations that combine artwork from Disney classics like "Bambi" with new images.
While Tinker Bell retains some of her Victorian feel, she's updated with new emotions, expressions and a voice (she didn't speak in the original movie). The book gives her a set of pals including Beck, a fairy that can talk to animals; Vidia, a "troubled" fairy; Prilla, a neophyte fairy; and Rani, a fairy with a generous heart -- the aim being to give girls a range of personalities to identify with. There's a queen of fairies; mother dove (inspired from a bird drawing in the original "Bambi" movie); and the "sparrow men" -- a band of male fairies but Disney didn't want to use the "fairy" label to identify them.
Tinker Bell's great love, Peter Pan, also gets a reference but Disney is keeping the story line under wraps for now. "It has a happy ending, like all fairy tales," is all Deborah Dugan, the president of Disney publishing, will say.
After the book hits shelves next fall, the first of the toys will make their way into stores. The early wave will include items like a model of Tinker Bell's house with tiny, delicate characters of around three inches tall that girls can collect, and larger porcelain dolls of Tinker Bell's fairy friends. Later on, the company will sell dolls with gizmos like wings that change color when they touch water or emit smells. Some dolls also will fly.
Another series of books and a magazine will pave the way for the first of two animated movies to be released in spring 2007. "At that point, we'll take stock and see if this is working or not," says Andrew Mooney, chairman of Disney's consumer-products division.
Disney is also crafting a Disney Fairies line of clothing, extending the recent wave of Disney vintage tops that have included some Tinker Bell-branded T-shirts and sweaters. Coincidentally, model and socialite Paris Hilton has turned up in celebrity magazines recently wearing a Tinker Bell emblazoned pink cashmere sweater.
The fairies are a part of Disney's efforts to revive its consumer-products division. The business took a hit in the 1990s as cartoon-related merchandise went out of fashion, and Disney brought Scottish-born Mr. Mooney in to turn the division around. The former Nike Inc. executive shored up the core Mickey Mouse brand with gimmicks like retro T-shirts, and hit it big by grouping Disney's best-known female stars into the Disney Princess line.
Aimed at three- to seven-year-old girls, Disney Princess generates more than $2 billion in retail sales from Princess baby dolls to "Beauty and the Beast" talking tea sets. The franchise now ranks as Disney's third-biggest after Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh. Repeating that success will be tough, though. While Disney Princess plugs into a hugely popular princess culture, it's unclear whether young girls will embrace fairies in the same way.
"The princess fantasy play is so clear-cut in terms of what the story is: 'I'm good, I have special powers, and everybody loves me,' " says independent toy consultant Christopher Byrne. "The fairy story line is a little bit less accessible, but if anyone has a good shot at it, Disney does." Disney isn't the only one moving into the fairy space, he notes: the Fox-aired animated television series "Winx Club," for instance, about a group of smart and stylish teenage fairies, has made headway among older girls.
Mr. Mooney concedes it will be difficult to match the success of Disney Princess. "With princess, the characters existed already," he says. "But with fairies, we're having to take a certain leap of faith." The princess concept was easy to convert into almost any kind of consumer product, he notes, adding: "We have a lot of growth left in Princess. It could grow to twice the size it is today."
While young girls outgrow fairy tales pretty quickly, wish-fulfillment stories remain popular well into the eight-to-12 'tween years and teen years as girls struggle with self-doubt, toy consultants say. And Tinker Bell isn't the average fairy -- after all she tried to kill Peter Pan's pal Wendy in a jealous rage in the original movie.
While Disney's franchises have traditionally originated at its movie studio, Disney Fairies is the result of Mr. Mooney's efforts to develop properties in other parts of the sprawling Disney empire. The seeds of the new franchise were found in sketches drawn up by the toy division as part of a brainstorm of ways to extend the princess line.
Aside from Disney Fairies, Mr. Mooney has other franchises in the works, including ones aimed at boys -- a segment that has proved a tougher nut to crack than girls. Along with publishing, he sees interactive games as a big source of story vehicles and has given that business an extra $40 million to develop properties this fiscal year.
So far, the revamp is making some headway: the consumer-products division reported a 37 percent increase in operating income for the nine months of the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, although 62 percent of that is from the Disney Stores, a business Disney just agreed to sell. "The turnaround is essentially complete," says Mr. Mooney.
