Kmart Shipper Disney's Largest

To support the home video release of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," Buena Vista Home Video, Burbank, Calif., has created the largest prepack shipper in the company's history. It was designed as an exclusive merchandiser for Troy, Mich.-based Kmart.Called the Snow White Interactive Merchandiser, it reached participating stores nationwide on Oct. 28, the street date for the new video's release."This display is a real breakthrough for Disney," says Andy Siditsky, director of creative services. "We've never done anything like this before. In fact, I don't think anyone in our industry has ever done anything like this before."While Siditsky will not reveal precise display counts and costs, he says that nearly all of Kmart's large and mid-sized stores had accepted it. Kmart has 2,400 stores throughout the U.S."It is a prepacked pallet display, but it has a permanent steel substructure, and it will be up at retail for more than one promotional period," he says. "The header and lower panel graphics are all interchangeable. 'The Lion King,' which will be our next big title, is coming out in March, so prior to that, we will be changing out the display to have 'Lion King' material on it."The display features two areas of interactivity that will appeal to children. One side features a representation of the Magic Mirror from "Snow White." When a customer pushes a button, special effect lighting shows a picture of the Evil Queen. Beneath the magic mirror is a curved, funhouse-style distortion mirror.The other side of the display has a motion-activated sensor and a high-quality sound chip from Clegg Industries, Torrance, Calif., that reproduces the Seven Dwarfs famous "Hi Ho" song. There is also a lighted, three-sided pole spinner that has famous Disney characters on it.Incremental SpaceWhile "Snow White" is the primary focus of the display, it was designed to cross-sell other products. "In the past year, we repackaged the Masterpiece Collection," Siditsky says. "The queen of the Masterpiece Collection is 'Snow White,' which was the first animated classic produced by Disney Studios. But another one of our goals was to get product off the inline section and out into incremental aisle space, and to move additional product along with 'Snow White.'" Instant redeemable coupons were inserted into "Snow White's" packaging, including a $5 coupon for the purchase of other Disney films.When fully stocked, the display features 720 videos as well as a mix of Disney CDs, cassettes and read-along audio products. "That was the other big thing for Kmart, where audio and video can be in separate sections," he says. "This display brings them together."While the display, which features laminated, die-cut foamboard and corrugated graphics plus a Coroplast pallet skirt, has the appearance of a temporary unit, it boasts a steel substructure and an oak pallet base. When fully loaded with merchandise, it weighs approximately 1,000 pounds. Siditsky says that Disney worked closely with Kmart to meet the chain's various size restrictions. The unit has only a 4-foot footprint and is 60 inches tall at its highest point.Disney will use its field merchandisers to replenish and update merchandise. Even that process has been simplified: "We designed the thing in a modular fashion so we can ship videos in prepacked [flood-coated corrugated] trays," he says.According to Siditsky, Disney looks for opportunities to meet the special needs of all of its retail partners. In this case, Disney designers had been working on basic concepts when the company made preliminary presentations to Kmart. "They were really interested in getting an incremental display area, but we didn't have that much space to work with," Siditsky says. "So this was the perfect opportunity."Creative development was in house, while The Dyment Co., Erlanger, Ky., manufactured the display and engineered the substructure. "It was Dyment's [Los Angeles office] design in terms of how you build something like this," he says. "Shipment went very smoothly, and all of the displays hit the stores on the same date. Because this was something so new, I think that it is a real credit to Dyment and our operations group."

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