A Samland Rant - The Vinylmation Invasion

One benefit of producing a blog that has only a few hundred readers a day (the smartest readers on the web as you know), no advertisers and is well below the radar of the mighty Disney publicity machine where I am sure nobody from the Company reads my stuff is I can say what I truly believe. As you know, I am not typically harsh on the Company but this time I must rant.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been reporting on my recent trip to Walt Disney World and Universal Studios Florida. While at Islands of Adventure, I was most impressed with how the shops helped to support the theme for that particular area.

This seems to be a lost art at Disney. Now the merchandise machine makes sure that everything is available at every single store regardless of theme. Why Jack Skellington is in Adventureland at Disneyland is beyond me when you can walk a couple of hundred feet to New Orleans Square to a store dedicated to the guy.

The real breakthrough at the Disney theme parks was what John Hench and Marty Sklar call the "lack of visual contradictions".

John Hench, who spent more than 60 years working for The Walt Disney Company, stated that the goal of the theme park designer is different than that of the urban planner. He said that the job of designing theme parks is to successfully eliminate visual contradictions. Visual contradictions are the active clutter that you see in the real world, which creates mixed messages, sets up conflicts, creates tension, and may even feel threatening. Marty Sklar, another long time Walt Disney Company executive, describes the process as the “architecture of reassurance.”

Not to offend those who collect Vinylmation characters but do we need to have one store in every single land at both parks in California carrying the same product, merchandised in the same manner, regardless of theme? The only lands in Disneyland that do not carry the stuff are Fantasyland and Critter Country. But Main Street makes up for that with 2 locations.

Score points for Universal and subtract some magic from Disney. I fear that we will soon be overrun with Duffy in the very near future. As a shareholder, I understand why per capita is way down. There is no longer any sense of urgency anymore.

If these displays look the same then you know what I mean.

Come on Disney. Be creative. Learn something from Universal. Just buy a ticket and enjoy a Duff Beer and Donut from the Quick-E-Mart next to the Simpsons and you will see what I mean. You will see a quicker ROI than the $1 billion you are spending on the Westworld project.