Disney Reboots Retail Experience, With Apple Assistance

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Photo by Stephanie Diani for the New York Times

Very interesting news from the New York Times: Disney is completely overhauling its retail stores, with Steve Jobs at the helm.

Theaters will allow children to watch film clips of their own selection, participate in karaoke contests or chat live with Disney Channel stars via satellite. Computer chips embedded in packaging will activate hidden features. Walk by a “magic mirror” while holding a Princess tiara, for instance, and Cinderella might appear and say something to you.
It’s your birthday? With the push of a button, eight 13-foot-tall Lucite trees will crackle with video-projected fireworks and sound. There will be a scent component; if a clip from Disney’s coming “A Christmas Carol” is playing in the theater, the whole store might suddenly be made to smell like a Christmas tree.

It’s a great article, well worth the read. Most notable is Jobs’s insistence that Disney build a full-scale prototype of the entire store in order to figure out how to get the experience just right. I can think of few events more telling in the transformation of Apple from niche computer-maker to taste-maker to the world than that of Disney asking Apple retail specialists for help in defining great experience design.

I mean, eight years ago, Apple didn’t even have stores. Disney created Disneyland. How’s that for turnabout?

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Disney Plans Extensive Overhaul of Mall Stores New York Times

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Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

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Charli
Folks often like to make note of the connections between Jobs and Disney/Pixar but I think this is an example of how those connections can be used to benefit all parties. Lord knows the staff at those stores could use some work. I’ve been in several and they are dead weight. Barely say hello. It’s crazy cause sometimes I’m not sure they registered that anyone is in the store. which means I could probably unload a shelf of stuff into a paper bag and walk out and they wouldn’t have a clue. Sad.
So maybe if they are going to spend all this money on fluff they will also revamp their staff’s attitude