Disney stores: To infinity, and beyond...

By any measure, Spain has to be one of the more difficult markets to operate in at the moment. The economy is in crisis and rumblings about it ‘doing a Greece’ have been the mainstay of many reports for some weeks now. A rapid trawl around the shops in Madrid, however, does restore a little confidence.

This is a country under pressure and yet the public areas of La Vaguada, one of the city’s major shopping centres, were packed and people were buying, albeit at heavily discounted prices. This may go some way towards explaining why Disney Stores has opted to stage the European launch of its new format in the Spanish capital (there is also the matter that the store was due for a refurbishment having been in the location since 1997).

Disney Stores Europe senior vice-president and joint managing director Teresa Tideman says that Spain remains a country where a premium is placed on the family and therefore this is a very important market for the retailer. Certainly, the unveiling of the new format, which took place last Thursday, was accompanied by all of the showbiz pizzazz that you’d expect of an offshoot of the Magic Kingdom and the build-up, with radio, TV and in-mall promotions, was substantial.

And there is a lot at stake. The company posted an £11.3m loss in the year to October 3, following a year in which it had recorded a small profit. The new format in Madrid then is intended to be the future for the company and plans are in place for a major worldwide roll-out over the next five to seven years, according to a spokesman.

Through the keyhole

At 4,000 sq ft, this is not a big store. This means that it does not, unlike the nearby Alcampo hypermarket, automatically dominate the area of the first upper level in which it is located by dint of size. However, the familiar swirling Disney logo does stand out from the retail crowd and is assisted in this by a digital screen embedded in part of the frontage, which director of marketing Jonathan Storey refers to as the shop’s “what’s new board”.

And the slightest of glimpses through the wide entrance (this is a shopping centre: there are no doors) is sufficient to confirm that this is a very different proposition from the rest of the mall and indeed from other Disney retail stores.

As part of making this an experience, Storey says that there will be a store opening ceremony every day in which the first child waiting outside the shop will be handed an outsize key that can then be inserted into a lock at the front of the shop that will bring things to life. He says that Disney expects the fortunate child to report the experience back to his or her friends and that they will then want to do the same and news of how you can ‘open’ the store will spread virally, leading to queues to perform the function.

And whether it’s a parent or child that is stood on the threshold, the first thing that will probably be noticed are the trees and then the deep blue marble terrazzo walkway that sparkles owing to the ‘pixie dust’ that forms part of it. The trees are in fact pretty much 2D representations of how a child might draw a tree in that they have no real depth when viewed side on.

Positioned in front of them, however, the onlooker will see everything from rustling hyper-green leaves,

projected onto the branches, to Disney animals singing in the trees and, from time to time, a fairy flitting around the branches.

The first tree therefore acts as an effective expectation-setter for the visitor and also serves to confirm that this is a store layout and design that seeks to provide an experience from a child’s perspective and to foster a sense of wonder. As perhaps is to be expected, the front right-hand side of the shop is filled with merchandise relating to Toy Story 3, which UK cinema-goers will finally get to see from Monday.

And standing proud on top of a mid-shop pyramid, a child-size mannequin sporting a Buzz Lightyear costume surveys those coming into the shop: this is about impact through the deployment of well-known cartoon icons.

To the left is a ‘princess’s castle’ with a small entrance. This takes the shape of the instantly recognisable Disney castle, which was reputed to have been modelled on the Alcázar in Segovia, just up the road from Madrid. What is clear is that this is not for adults - the entrance is child-sized but, for those small enough to walk through, three dressing mirrors await. These, as Storey points out, are “magic” mirrors that at a wave of one of the many wands that are on sale on a display directly in front of them, will change the mirror into a clip from a Disney movie.

The “magic” is down to an imaginative use of RFID technology and different wands are programmed to trigger different clips, but for children, and there were a few on the day of visiting, this appears astonishing.

Head further along the pixie dust walkway and the different Disney genres become apparent, whether it’s the Hannah Montana area for older children or the ‘plush fountain’ at the back of the store. The latter is indeed in the shape of a three-tier fountain and is crammed with Disney soft toys, intended for the babies and very young shoppers, according to Storey.

It is at the back of the shop, however, that you encounter the feature that really sets this store apart - the in-store cinema and activity area. In essence, this is a white pergola covering a space that will accommodate up to 15 children where you can watch a large screen with clips from Disney films. Close to 50 of these are available and children or adults can select them on demand from a touch pad to the right of the main screen.

But as well as being a mini-cinema, this part of the shop is also an activity area where children can be taught how to draw, say, Mickey Mouse, in the style of a Disney illustrator, learn how to dance like a Disney character, or take part in a Disney parade that starts in the cinema and winds up at the front of the shop.

All of this may not be to every adult’s taste, but there is no denying the power of the storytelling that takes place in this store and the way in which the deeper recesses of the Disney store cupboard have been raided and coupled with technology to create something compelling. Tideman claims that the new format is “groundbreaking” and that there is nothing else like it on the high street.

She has a point and the first new look UK Disney store, a refurbishment, will appear in Belfast in the middle of next month, followed by Milton Keynes and Aberdeen, both of which are store relocations. This kind of thing does not come cheap and the level of technology, the palette of materials and the development time (the initial concept was created by New York-based design consultancy Pompei AD) mean the investment and time required to realise a return are likely to be substantial.

Tideman is tight-lipped about the cost, but whatever your view, this is quite unlike anything else in the La Vaguada centre and when it makes its UK debut, its appeal seems assured, in spite of the cost of installation.