Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Disney Launches Web Personalization with Zazzle

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Walt Disney Co.'s online shopping site on Wednesday launched its first "You design it" feature in a move aimed at riding the fast-growing trend toward giving choosy Internet shoppers exactly what they want. Disney partnered with online customization site Zazzle.com, which li-censes thousands of images from Warner Bros., Marvel Comics Inc., Lucasfilm Ltd. and 20th Century Fox, among others, and also allows users to sell their own art for use on personalized T-shirts, greeting cards and postage stamps. It took Disney, which aggressively protects its copyrights, about two years to figure out how to open its vast art archives, while controlling how consumers could use its characters. Zazzle's Disney boutique, which can be accessed via disneyshopping.com and disneyinkshop.com, allows con-sumers to select a Disney character, T-shirt style and color and to add a name or phrase from an ap-proved list. The 4,000-plus Disney images can also be used on stamps or greeting cards on Zazzle. Sales of Disney personalized products were expected to rise 25 percent to 35 percent over last year's holiday quarter. Personalized products made up 10 percent to 12 percent of Disney Shopping's overall business last year and were expected to grow to 15 percent. The partnership with Zazzle allows Disney to market its secondary characters, which usually are not licensed by traditional retailers and to tap into emerging, consumer-driven trends.

Is it my imagination, or hasn't Disney had a Zazzle shop for a while now?

No comments: