Mattel owns the doll market, and despite her recent stumble, Barbie is still the best-selling doll of all time. “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.ĭisney is taking a risk turning to Hasbro. 1, when Disney packs up its glass slippers and takes them to Mattel’s biggest rival, Hasbro. 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.īut not for long: The princess business disappears on Jan. 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. 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.

Specifically, 12-inch Barbie-esque figurines that girls can dress and undress until the dolls’ hairdos get tangled, they’ve lost their shoes, and it’s time to buy another. In toys, the most lucrative Disney Princess license is dolls. It licenses them to all sorts of companies: Glidden makes pink and purple wall paint, Stride Rite makes sparkly shoes.

last year, selling $531 million worth of dolls and dresses, according to NPD Group.ĭisney doesn’t manufacture most of the Princess products. The movie spawned the top toy brand in the U.S.

(Disney’s new Star Wars movie might change that.) That doesn’t even include Frozen, which came out in 2013 and which Disney measures separately. Princess merchandise-dolls, clothing, games, home décor, toys-is a $5.5 billion enterprise and Disney’s second-most-profitable franchise, after Mickey Mouse. Since Walt Disney lumped Sleeping Beauty, Belle, and its other poofy-dressed ladies together under the brand Disney Princess in 2000, the market for all things pink and sparkly has skyrocketed. Keeping a 3-year-old girl away from Disney’s princesses is a lot like trying to get through January without hearing about the Super Bowl. She knew about the so-called princess phase that little girls go through, but, she says, “I assumed it was something girls do when it’s thrust upon them.” She’s not even in preschool yet,” Keithler, 31, sighs. “I really didn’t think this would happen. Photographer: Sarah Anne Ward for Bloomberg Businessweek

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