Disney Princesses Got a Makeover

[Sotiris]

The Disney Princess website was updated giving most of the princesses new poses.

[disneyprincess11]

They look horrible, minus Belle, Tiana, and Merida. And STILL no Anna and Elsa?! At this rate, Moana will be added before them

[Sotiris]

And STILL no Anna and Elsa?! At this rate, Moana will be added before them

I don't think Anna or Elsa will ever be inducted into the Disney Princess line. Yes, the initial plan was to include them but since then Frozen has become a merchandising juggernaut and has grown into one of Disney's biggest franchises. It doesn't make any business sense now to include them in the Disney Princess line and risk diluting the Frozen line and diminishing its impact in the market. If consumers could get Anna and Elsa bundled together with other princesses, they wouldn't be bothered to buy them separately as part of the Frozen line. Similarly, licensees wouldn't pay double to get both properties when they could just get one that has characters from both.

[Disney's Divinity]

I think if you cut out the first two columns on the left, the rest look okay. I mean, the new clothes/hair designs are still ugly, but the drawings are decent? (Jasmine is the worst of the group...) One of the few times Rapunzel and Merida don't look completely hideous in their 2D artwork. Of all the changes, Cinderella's hair becoming a mop is still the worst.

[DisneyFan09]

They look even worse.

[Jay]

Yikes Jasmine and Aurora look horrible. Ariel looks a little scary. Her eyes are all blue. And lol at Pocahontas not changing her facial expression at all.

[Disney's Divinity]

Yikes Jasmine and Aurora look horrible. Ariel looks a little scary. Her eyes are all blue. And lol at Pocahontas not changing her facial expression at all.

Poor Pocahontas hasn't got new clipart since the 90's. They just slapped some ugly window dressing on her.

[MeerkatKombat]

Yikes Jasmine and Aurora look horrible. Ariel looks a little scary. Her eyes are all blue. And lol at Pocahontas not changing her facial expression at all.

Poor Pocahontas hasn't got new clipart since the 90's. They just slapped some ugly window dressing on her.

I was gonna say, Pocahontas hasn't changed!
Come on! Someone at Disney must be able to draw a new Pocahontas pose! That clipart wasn't good when it was new. Now it's just tragic.

As for Jasmine - I'm gonna go with that old saying 'if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all....'
Sorry, it's hideous. My eyes, My eyes!

[MeerkatKombat]

Yikes Jasmine and Aurora look horrible. Ariel looks a little scary. Her eyes are all blue. And lol at Pocahontas not changing her facial expression at all.

Poor Pocahontas hasn't got new clipart since the 90's. They just slapped some ugly window dressing on her.

Edit: sorry double posted.

[Kyle]

As for Jasmine - I'm gonna go with that old saying 'if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all....'
Sorry, it's hideous. My eyes, My eyes!

Not that I disagree, but why bother telling us your not going to say anything at all only to follow that up by calling it hideous?

[MeerkatKombat]

Not that I disagree, but why bother telling us your not going to say anything at all only to follow that up by calling it hideous?

My feelings were too strong and too loud to ignore.

[Sotiris]

Hasbro is getting the license for the Disney Princess and Frozen franchises and they're redesigning the doll line.

You should read the entire article about it on Bloomberg. It's really interesting. It chronicles Disney's relationship with Mattel, the reasons why Disney jumped ship to Hasbro, and Hasbro's plans for the Disney Princess franchise.

Mattel has worked with Disney since 1955, when it became the first sponsor for the Mickey Mouse Club, and it’s been the company’s go-to dollmaker since 1996. Last year, Mattel put the size of its Disney Princess doll business at $300 million, though analysts at Needham say it’s closer to $500 million. With sales of Mattel’s most famous toy, 56-year-old Barbie, tumbling 20 percent from 2012 to 2014 and still falling, Princess dolls have been a much-needed revenue stream.

But not for long: The princess business disappears on Jan. 1, when Disney packs up its glass slippers and takes them to Mattel’s biggest rival, Hasbro. “Disney Princess was probably the greatest coup that Hasbro has had in the last three decades,” says Gene Del Vecchio, a former Ogilvy & Mather executive who has worked with Mattel and Disney in the past and helps Hollywood studios translate their movies into what he calls “merchandise opportunities.” Adweek likens Hasbro’s achievement to the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series.

Disney is taking a risk turning to Hasbro. Mattel owns the doll market, and despite her recent stumble, Barbie is still the best-selling doll of all time. Hasbro, meanwhile, has traditionally kept to the boys’ side of the toy aisle, with brands such as Nerf and Transformers. But it has big plans for the princesses. Hasbro and Disney are redesigning and re-releasing every Princess doll, even Pocahontas, which few stores carry. Hasbro hired a few dozen people, mostly designers and developers, who work out of its newly expanded production studio in Burbank, just minutes from Disney. “We’re going to make the Princess brand far bigger and more ubiquitous than it has been in the past,” says Brian Goldner, Hasbro’s chief executive officer.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015- ... ss-hasbro/


Surprisingly, Disney/Hasbro are acknowledging the issue of under-marketing the princesses of color in the line and are planning to remedy that.

“Every girl knows Cinderella, but there are 11 princesses,” says Andrea Hopelain, a former Disney marketing director who’s vice president for global brand strategy at Hasbro. [...] Toys “R” Us’s flagship store in Times Square is 110,000 square feet and sells toys to millions of children every year, but right before Christmas this year, it had only one Tiana toy. That will change with Hasbro. “We can reintroduce Mulan,” says Hopelain. “We can play up that Tiana is a great cook.”

Both Hasbro and Disney say they plan to highlight the princesses’ bravery and skills in future advertising, and to give the nonwhite princesses more shelf space. “A 4-year-old girl doesn’t realize how the world she lives in is different from 10 or 15 years ago, but her parents do,” says Frascotti. And parents, he points out, are the ones who buy the toys.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015- ... ss-hasbro/


The shorter (and less appealing) dolls on the left are the new Hasbro ones.

[Kyle]

Yeesh, even the better ones are an eyesore.

[unprincess]

The biggest complaint Ive read at doll forums is the oddly proportioned heads & bodies. The dresses could be better but at least they dont have molded bodices. The emphasis on the minority princesses and having them be more active and less passive prirncess is a welcome change...

The prevailing wisdom at the studio was that somehow having the princesses gang together would destroy their individual mythology and therefore the value of their films,”

well that's exactly what ended up happening anyway...

Several former Mattel employees point to the 2013 release of Ever After High as the last straw for Disney. Chris Sinclair, a Mattel board member who took over as CEO in January, agrees. “We got too competitive with them on Ever After High,” he says. According to Mattel’s annual report, Ever After High accounted for just $53 million in added sales last year.

I knew EAH had to have been the biggest culprit, no way Disney was gonna stand for that.

[Disney's Divinity]

Wow, Disney has no loyalty at all. Been with them since 1955 and the moment Mattel actually needs to depend on them, they run over to their rival. Jeez.

The arms are still hideous, but can't deny the dolls look better. I hope those article excerpts are true and they give characters like Mulan and Tiana a little more fanfare. EDIT: I thought the dolls on the right were the new ones. Never mind.

[DisneyFan09]

I had completely forgotten about the (unfortunate) brand change. It's truly a pity. I remember Hasbro releasing the Disney toys in 2001/2002 and there were nothing wrong with those products. But to have the licence for the Princess line? (*Shrugs*).

And the dolls looks hideous!

[Mooky]

Put Mattel dolls' heads on Hasbro dolls' bodies and we might have something appealing. Because right now, these don't look very good... I actually wish Hot Toys would start releasing Disney Princess figures, then we'd finally get film-accurate toys/dolls and not crap covered in glitter, even though they'd be super-expensive.

[unprincess]

seriously, Jasmine looks like a Roswell alien, I think she's the worst of the bunch...

[Scarred4life]

I think the head sizes are actually a good change. The Disney Princess line as it is (or, was) stands out like a sore thumb in the doll aisles. With dolls like Monster High, https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lqvCrCRoPCM/maxresdefault.jpg, Ever After High, http://media.mattel.com/root/Images/Mai ... nt_XXX.jpg, and Descendants http://www.mavenofsavin.com/wp-content/ ... -dolls.png, big heads are in.

Objectively, this will make the dolls more current, more popular, and more profitable. Honestly, they're more true to the actual animation as well. Disney is notorious for animating its female characters with giant heads, especially since CGI has come into play.

Although, Jasmine could use some.... improvements...

[disneyprincess11]

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hp ... e=57064561

OH. MY. GOD