Today In Disney History ~ January 25th
Walt Disney Co. and Coca-Cola Co. have signed a 15-year contract that will make Coke products the exclusive soft drinks at all Disney parks and give the beverage maker the right to use Disney characters in joint advertisements and promotions, the companies announced Wednesday.
The pact, which Disney and Coke announced in a joint news release, is broader and of longer duration than past agreements, Coca-Cola spokesman Randy Donaldson said.
Previously, most of Coke’s agreements with Disney averaged three years, but the new one does not expire until 2005. Also, Donaldson said, the agreement will allow the soft-drink company to use, in promotions and advertisements, characters that have yet to be created by Disney’s motion-picture studio.
The contractual rights to use the characters ”haven’t changed,” Donaldson said, but Disney’s filmed entertainment business ”has so expanded that this means additional opportunities for us.”
Neither company would say how much the deal may be worth.
The agreement also will include the sale of Coke products at a new Disney park, Euro Disneyland, which is to open near Paris in 1992. Also, as in past agreements, Coke will sell its products at Disney’s existing parks, including Walt Disney World near Orlando and Disneyland at Anaheim, Calif.
Coca-Cola soft drinks are available at Tokyo Disneyland in Japan under a separate agreement, the companies said.
The new agreement also gives Coke the right to use certain Disney characters in advertisements and promotions, but it does not allow the beverage maker to put the characters’ likenesses on its products. That means Coke drinkers won’t be seeing bottle caps bearing Mickey Mouse’s ears, but Mickey and other characters may appear in Coke ads.
The new agreement is ”a renewal and an extension of a long friendship,” said Erwin D. Okun, Disney’s senior vice president of corporate communications. Coke and Disney, he added, ”obviously have a mutually beneficial relationship.”
The new pact also will allow Coke to have the right of first refusal in deciding whether to use characters developed by Disney’s motion-picture studio.
That means if Coke decides it does not want to participate in a joint promotion using characters from a Disney movie, Disney would be able to turn to another beverage company as a promotional partner. But the other beverage maker would not be allowed to use the Disney characters, Okun said.
