Mousekingdom Blog

Well, well, well … how fast things can change … only two days ago fellow blogger Andy reported here on Mousekingdom Blog that Disney and McDonald’s had ended their partnership which gave Disney exclusive access to the McDonald’s Happy Meals. According to US-newspapers (as the Orlando Sentinel which he quoted or the LA Times) Disney did not renew the contract despite yearly license income of 100 million US-$ due to the increasingly negative image of fast food in the US. But it must be questioned whether they expected this reaction of the golden arches…

According to report on the website of the major German magazine Spiegel McDonald’s found a new partner to provide the themes for the toys: Disney’s rival Dreamworks! The new partnership is set to last 2 years and will include promotions e.g. for the upcoming Shrek 3 feature (according to Spiegel though, there are internal discussions at Dreamworks, whether it would be better to add the toys to the salads instead of the burgers).
If this seems like a lightning fast reaction … it isn’t. According to the latest statements of Disney the decision to terminate the exclusive cooperation with McDonald’s at the end of the year was already agreed upon mutually between the parties nearly two years ago. Also Disney stretches that other cooperation projects will continue … which according to unconfirmed rumors referrs e.g. to the McDonald’s locations in the resorts and the sponsorhsip of e.g. the Disneyland Railroad at Disneyland Paris. Still the fact that McDonald’s will now help push rival products oif Dreamworks such as Shrek 3 aiming at the same target audience as the classic core Disney features is certainly not good news.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 10th, 2006 at 8:22 am and is filed under Disney Company, Disney Movies, Disney in General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.