Main Street Merchants Opens for Business at Disney.com
Main Street Merchants Opens for Business at Disney.com
Disney Online Expands e-Commerce With New Storefront for Advertising And Sponsorship Opportunities
In anticipation of the holiday shopping season, Disney Online today is launching Main Street Merchants (www.disney.com/mainstreet), a virtual shopping center that provides licensees and advertising partners with new commerce and promotional opportunities reaching Disney Online's family audience. Similar to Disneyland's legendary Main Street U.S.A, Main Street Merchants offers both general and Disney-themed merchandise. The new area is launching with product lines from premier licensing partners including Disney Home -- a line of Disney-branded colorful paints, bedding and bath products for children's rooms; and family-oriented sponsors such as LEGO.
Research backs the company's entrance into third-party commerce on Disney.com. The site's guests have a proclivity to online commerce. Seventy three percent of Disney Online guests have made an online purchase within the last year, compared to the national average of 47 percent (CyberDialogue's American Internet User Study Q2 2001). In addition, association with Disney positively impacts other brands and products. In a recent study conducted for Disney Online, 43 percent of interviewees reported that they "feel more positively about brands or products advertised on Disney.com because of their association with Disney."
"Main Street Merchants creates an environment where Disney shoppers can find a breadth of family-oriented products and gives our advertisers and licensing partners an important new distribution channel," said Ken Goldstein, executive vice president and managing director of Disney Online. "We set out to create an innovative sponsorship opportunity for our advertising partners. I believe it will be very effective due to the strong halo effect Disney can offer, as well as the area's tight integration within our site, which reflects Disney theme park design."
The Main Street Merchants storefront features illustrated icons that link users to various product categories such as apparel, baby, home, and toys. Under each product category, links guide guests to "display windows" that include product samples from each participating merchant. Visitors can enter individual merchant stores by clicking on product samples, which are links to merchants' own e-commerce sites.
"Establishing a relationship with Disney Online provides LEGO a tremendous opportunity to drive sales with our key target audience," said Alexander Algermissen, Global Marketing Manager of LEGO Direct. "Main Street Merchants offers a credible environment on an extremely popular site."
"Disney.com is a great place to offer LEGO and LEGO online exclusive merchandise to gain online traffic and exposure," added Scott Witt of Organic, Inc., director of online marketing strategy for LEGO Direct. "When selecting publishers for LEGO's Q4 online efforts, Disney's Main St. Merchants program was the digital equivalent of a 'hand-in-glove' marketing initiative."
--Posted October 23, 2001
Source: The Walt Disney Internet Group