Red Hot Frozen

Every once in a while an unexplained cultural phenomenon hits us. In my childhood it was Cabbage Patch Kids: ugly, expensive, wearing impossibly unfashionable clothes. In the 90's there was Tickle Me Elmo, with its creepy unending giggles that made you think you may wake up one night to see it holding a knife.

By now it's no news that Disney's Frozen is the unprecedented phenomenon of the decade. Even without any kids in the house, I'm aware of this, from the Facebook posts to the Disney blogs to the sudden appearance of Frozen Sing-Along movies at my local theater.

Going to Walt Disney World is like heading to Frozen central. It's completely CRAZED. Disney does a good job in keeping the chaos contained. The Princess Fairy Tale Hall is indoors, so I didn't see how many thousands of people are packed inside, but families can wait FIVE HOURS to meet Anna and Elsa.

Why yes, I will wait 300 minutes to meet some college girls wearing princess dresses.

While the Bippity Boppoty Boutique is churning out hundreds of little princesses a day, there's not a single Elsa coming out of the Disney boutiques because they simply can't keep the costumes in store. A few times I did catch glimpses of an Elsa skipping through the park - those lucky kids had parents who thought ahead to hunt down the costumes on eBay prior to visiting the park.

She doesn't know how lucky she is.

Nope, Frozen isn't just for little girls either.

The whole franchise is so popular now that in all the Disney shops there are Frozen sections with tags telling potential customers that they are limited to five items per person unless otherwise specified. Of course, with the feeding frenzy from other Frozen fans it's likely that your five items will be Frozen frosted cookies and Olaf t-shirts, rather than Elsa costumes or dolls.

Last week, I ducked into every princess store I passed without seeing Elsa dolls or costumes. On the last day, bingo! An entire wall of Elsa dolls, recently arrived that morning. The cast member estimated they got a thousand dolls, and would be sold out by early afternoon. Customers who were interested in buying it but wanted to come back later in the afternoon so they didn't have to carry it all day were advised to buy it now and put it in a locker.

Don't let her Snow White dress fool you: she really wants to be Elsa too.

I'm now hunting down references to just what Frozen has accomplished in real terms. So far, I've discovered that Elsa is the most profitable princess. Tourism in Norway is up: 152% more searches for flights to Norway, triple the normal visits to the Norwegian tourism web site. And more "Let It Go" covers than you can shake a stick at. 

I can't for the life of me figure out why it's all so popular. If you have any ideas, let me know. Or maybe I should just let it go too.

Welcome Home

When I spent three weeks in Tokyo on my own last year I got pretty lonely. Not only was I away from all of my friends and family, but being in a completely different environment where I couldn't even say "good morning" to the Seven-11 clerk became thoroughly depressing. So I went to Tokyo Disneyland, looking for familiarity, for a little bit of America in the middle of Japan. It was as close to home as I was going to feel until I managed to land back in San Francisco. Somehow, even though the Country Bears sang "On the Road Again" in Japanese, it made me feel like I was home.

Lately I've started talking to people about their connection to Disney, and have been surprised how often this word "home" is used. They don't even need to go on rides, or meet familiar characters. Sitting on a bench on Main Street, watching the crowds go by, is all the experience they need to feel like they are home again.

For some people, particularly in southern California where it all originated, it's not just their home but a familial home, kind of like Windsor Castle for the British royals. (And like Windsor Castle, tourists visit your home all the time, but it's still your home.) I've spoken with people who are now into building fourth-generation memories in the Disney Park home. Their parents were at Disney when it opened. They visited with their parents as kids, and when they had their own kids, brought them to the parks to share their own special memories and build new ones. And now their grandkids are layering on that emotional attachment to the family home.

And this is where the Disney understanding of its brand power comes in for the kill. With products like Disney Vacation Club and the Disneyland annual passport (as well as the Premier Passport for both Parks), the Disney Company invites people to come back to Disney parks again and again, every year, for the $98/day park tickets and $4 bottles of water that keep the shareholders happy. And with every trip and with every new generation, the parks become more of home, the attachment stronger.

I know there are other places people think of as "home." It's usually somewhere familiar, where they've spent happy times over repeated visits. For me it's also Las Vegas (particularly Circus Circus) and Hawaii and the Dish hike in the Stanford foothills. It's even something more intangible like Star Trek and the smell of dried California chaparral. But I've yet to find a place that so systematically builds on this product of home.

At the entryway of Animal Kingdom Lodge.

When Disney created the park he was inspired by his weekly visits with his daughter to the local park. He wanted something bigger, that the whole family could enjoy together. I wonder if he could see into the future at the parks that have grown out of his dream, what he would have thought.