RSSMy How Times Have Changed … Disney Hopes to Smell Like a Rose with Pre-Teen Fragrance Market
Can’t we just let children be children?
What a different world we live in today. Remember when it was a badge of honor for a 
young lad to not take a bath? A form of defiance to resist the bar of soap as a pre-teen boy? Remember the old laundry detergent commercials with the children head to toe in mud? Not any more.
In the 21st century Disney looks to make young boys smell their best. I, like many others really have to ask myself, what child in this age bracket cares what they smell like? Let me rephrase that. What boy in this age bracket cares?
Forget the smell of sweat, grass and dirt. Disney Consumer Products wants young boys smelling their best.
Disney is rolling out Pirates of the Caribbean- and Buzz Lightyear-branded fragrances targeting boys ages 4-11 in Latin communities.
The products, which will retail between $9.95 and $19.95, will reach retail shelves by September in time for the holiday season.
This is just a further example of profiting off the idea of not allowing children to be children. Do pre-teen boys really need a fragrance? I always thought we had one. It smelled like whatever mud puddle, grass stain or incident we managed to get ourselves into. Why can’t we just let children be children? What’s next thongs for pre-teens girls? Oh wait that was tried and was met with incredible opposition, as it should have.
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9 Responses to “My How Times Have Changed … Disney Hopes to Smell Like a Rose with Pre-Teen Fragrance Market”
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I pity all those kids whose mothers will fall for this incredibly bizarre idea … thinking “Oh, won’t he be cute!”
I guess the purpose of advertising is to plug things that no sane person would ever dream of wanting … or even ever dream could be devised. What kid of that age cares what he smells like? Why isn’t soap and water good enough?
Maybe as society gets richer, someone has to create more and more artificial needs. Then when the crash comes, everyone will wonder why they fell for it.
I personally think soap smells good…. for anybody! But, cologne and perfume are for men and women. Kids should be kids!!!!! I wouldn’t buy it!!!!! I would think little boys would say, your not putting that stuff on me! And ritefully so!
They will try and make a fortune off this crap, but just wait, you will be able to buy this crap at the dollar store before you know it. Crap=another word for disneys smell good.
clean is fine.
Pirates of the Caribbean fragrance…oouuu..I can only imagine what a pirate smells like!
No dollar store here. Maybe the issue is because it’s for boys, but Disney already puts out many lotions/perfumes/etc for 4-11 year old girls. Thats so Raven, Lizzy M, Disney Princesses, Hannah Montana(coming soon)…the list goes on. I say pre-teen girls don’t need this stuff either. But when Raven’s line is doing about 400mill a year, it’s hard to pass that up. Heck, Disney Princess stuff is an absolute juggernaut. Must do at least a billion. Still doesn’t make it right.
It has been my experience, in living in Mexico and other
Latin American countries; that, generally, their boys are
kept clean and are not allowed to get dirty in the ground-
rolling fashion that many American’s feel is a part of boys
being boys. The sale of the fragrance should do well in
that market for the families that can afford it.
I wish Disney would target something that would encourage
these clean-cut boys to stay in school, especially, in the
countries where the average person only has a third-grade
education. We need fewer Latino lovers and more Latino
Doctors, Nurses, Teachers and Scientists.
Oh, well, what the hell, it will soon be Chritmas and who
wants to be bothered with the betterment of mankind when
you have directors trying to turn a profit for their
stock holders?
Back in the days when Grover Cleveland was president and I was a kid, it was normal … at least, not uncommon … for kids who I knew to wear something called “hand-me-downs.”
(Haven’t heard that expression in a long time.)
When my older brother outgrew something, I got to wear it. This was the case in my neighborhood generally.
I wonder if anyone does that today? I wonder if anyone even understands the concept anymore?
There’s always grumbling about the cost of living. But when I read stuff about things like a special brand of cologne being invented to be foisted on pre-teen boys who probably don’t want it to begin with, I have to wonder how much excess there is.
Does anyone else remember the days when there was one car per FAMILY, not per family member? True, those were the days when mothers were much more stay-at-home than now, and it’s to the good of everyone that there are more opportunities for all of us.
Still and all, I wonder if people took a look at what they consumed, and then decided how much of that they really needed … of course, who’s to say what need is?
It seems to me there has to be some sort of balance between a bare-bones austerity budget and an excess such as this.
Maybe I’m making too much of this one extravagance.
I think it is a sad thing to teach youngsters one more way to compare themselves to others – to teach them at a suggestable age that they are not good enough as they are.
But that of course is what marketers want to do, so they have a ready market of folks who need their products to make themselves more acceptable.
As is pointed out in a book/course called Non-Violent Communication:
in our society of “top-down” authority, we are taught that our own perceptions in life are not so important as the perceptions of those who we wish to impress/please/obey.