A closer look at the Tiana merchandise push

Today’s paper included a story looking at how aggressively the Walt Disney Co. is promoting The Princess and the Frog — and its star, Princess Tiana — at Walt Disney World and its other theme parks. The story included some comments, from among others, Dara Trujillo, manager of merchandise synergy and franchises for Walt Disney Parks and Resorts.

Here are few extra comments from Trujillo that didn’t make it into the final story.

Trujillo said one of the most popular pieces of Tiana merchandise so far has been, not surprisingly, her dress. Trujillo said that has historically been true of all of the princesses, as little girls love to buy gowns that designed to look exactly like the ones the characters wear around the parks.

“Our guests were chomping at the bit, they couldn’t wait to see what the dress looked like,” Trujillo said. “We are running fast and furious to make sure when the movie does break that we are fully in stock on that costume.”

Tiana merchandise is already among the most popular in the princess line, a fact that Trujillo attributed, in part, to the fact that Tiana is the new princess on the block. “Naturally there’s going to be a flow of our guests who say, ‘I want what is new,’” Trujillo said. It was “very similar when we launched Jasmine [from 1992's Aladdin].”

Trujillo said the advance push for The Princess and the Frog at Disney World, at least from a merchandise standpoint, is most comparable to the blitzes ahead of the movies in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy (the last of which was released in 2007).

She said introducing merchandise so early for those movies was easy because Disney guests already knew plenty about the franchise, initially because of its history as a ride at Disney World and Disneyland and then because of the success of the first film.

“People understand Pirates of the Caribbean. People understand princesses,” Trujillo said.