Marks & Spencer has a new festive collaboration to celebrate Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Frozen 2 opening in UK cinemas from 22 November. M&S will offer customers Frozen 2 merchandise in special Frozen 2 shops launching in the kidswear sections of all M&S stores across the UK and online.
Supporting the shops will be a range of marketing. This includes window displays and social media content. Also, mobile marketing, with more searches of kidswear via mobile than any other area of M&S Clothing.
The shops will offer 72 Frozen 2 products, all of which are exclusive to M&S. These include fancy dress costumes, pyjamas, advent calendars and soft toys. Furthermore, from November, 54 of the biggest shops will include selfie stations offering special festive pictures with Elsa or Anna.
As part of the collaboration, M&S will be joining Disney in supporting UK charity Together for Short Lives.
Together for Short Lives is a leading UK charity for children with life-threatening and life-limiting conditions. The charity’s work enables seriously ill children and their families to make the most of every moment they have together. One way it does this is by raising funds for all 54 children’s hospices across the UK through corporate partnerships.
This Christmas, M&S will show its support for the charity’s work by selling an exclusive tote bag that will be released in October.
Commenting is Nathan Ansell, director of Clothing & Home marketing at M&S. “Growing M&S kidswear is an important focus at M&S as we work to appeal to family-aged customers.
“Frozen 2 is a highly anticipated film and when the trailer landed it was record-breaking. Lots of our customers will be excited to visit our special Frozen 2 shops and check out our exclusive product. It’s also important to us, especially at Christmas time, that we support causes our customers and colleagues care about. We’re incredibly proud to also be working with Together for Short Lives.”
Also commenting is Andy Fletcher, CEO for Together for Short Lives. “The collaboration will help us support seriously ill children and families to get the care they need and spread a little joy this Christmas with funds raised helping to support the 54 children’s hospices we work with across the UK.”
M&S and Disney are joining forces as M&S focuses on transforming its Clothing & Home business to be more relevant for Britain’s busy families. This includes an overhaul of how the retailer plans, buys, moves and sells products. M&S and Disney share an audience of 9 million fans, with half of M&S’s Clothing & Home customers describing themselves as “Disney fans.” The collaboration will run through until Christmas.
