Seeking to return the glory to next-generation Disney Stores
| Tweet |
By Anne DiNardo
In The Sorcerer's Apprentice segment of "Fantasia," Mickey Mouse is bored with lugging buckets of water to the Sorcerer's cavern. So he plays with magic, conjuring a tribe of brooms to life to help with his chore. But he ends up learning a near-painful lesson about messing with the natural order of things.
In real life, The Children's Place Retail Stores Inc., the new owner of the Disney Store retail chain, is trying to channel the magic of the venerable brand and its heritage to renew the old Disney Store experience. The company has opened 18 stores and remodeled 32 since taking over the chain in 2004, searching for a renewed identity for the beloved brand's retail experience. The question is: How much do you want to play with so familiar a brand before you alienate its devoted fans and shoppers?
"We're trying to have fun and get people excited about the product and the stores again," says Chele Mckee, senior director of visual merchandising for Disney Store, the Glendale, Calif.-based division of The Children's Place.
Back in the 80s, when The Walt Disney Co. (Burbank, Calif.) began launching a fleet of "retail-tainment" spaces, it took theming to the max with lots of animation, theatrics, characters and fun. The empire grew to more than 1000 off-park stores, based mainly in malls, with some freestanding locations in tourist cities like New York, Las Vegas and Chicago. But the theme-park giant eventually found out that shoppers farther removed from the center of the Disney world are less inclined to buy Goofy trinkets and Tinker Bell souvenirs. And Disney began closing the chain almost as quickly as it had grown it.
When The Children's Place, a specialty children's apparel and accessories retailer in Secaucus, N.J., purchased the more than 300 remaining Disney Stores in North America, it committed $100 million to upgrade and expand them.
The Children's Place knew it had a recognizable brand, but found it also had a fleet of stores with various design formats.
"Fifteen years ago, Disney Stores' themed retail environments were cutting edge," says Michael Dubiel, The Children's Place senior director of store design. "But the stores had aged. We needed a more fresh and modern look."
Did you enjoy this article? Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
