The Birth of Cartoon Character - Insights from the U.S. Case Law Database (5/8)
Merchandising Created the "Character"
Here is another promotional photograph, presented as a pair.
This one is likely a commemorative photo taken around the time Walt Disney was awarded an honorary Academy Award in November 1932. The other photo is assumed to have been taken later.
We can make this assumption because, in 1932, just a few months before the Oscar ceremony, Walt met with the manager of an advertising agency and soon brought him on as a business partner. This individual, Kay Kamen, would play a pivotal role in the turning point of Walt's career as a businessman.
During this period in the United States, the concept of "merchandising" was gaining traction. It involved adjusting production and supply based on sales data from physical stores. Kamen suggested to the Disney brothers that, if made head of character commercialization, he could guarantee significantly higher and more stable profits [1].
Kamen had published advertising magazines for department store products in several large cities, a practice he continued at the time. Drawing from this experience, he believed that Mickey's design and image could serve not only as an attraction for products but also as a brand in itself.
It was already well known that depicting popular comic and cartoon characters on mass-market products boosted sales, as seen with items like the Yellow Kid plates and lighters from the late 19th century. However, it was not more than the fact that, due to the ambiguity in American law and judicial decisions at the time, there were gaps in enforcement, and some took advantage of these areas for small-scale profit.
Walt (or, more accurately, his brother Roy, the de facto CEO) no longer saw these gaps merely as secondary opportunities for profit. He began to view anything modeled after Mickey as Disney's exclusive property, with Mickey himself embodying the Disney brand. This marked the beginning of what we now call "character licensing" [2][3] .
To be continued in part 6
[1] O.B. Johnston, who oversaw Disney's merchandising division for several decades, serialized an autobiography titled "Watashi to Kyarakuta Machandaijingu" (My Life with Character Merchandising) in the "Merchandising Rights Report" from the November 1981 issue to the November 1982 issue. In this series, he describes the work of his superior, Kay Kamen. It should be noted that this paper relies on the original manuscript (in English and unpublished) held by Johnston's family.
[2] According to Disney's 1940 annual report for shareholders, sales of Disney character merchandise in 1932 amounted to $300,000, but by 1937, they had surged to $35 million. Late 1937 also marked the completion of the feature film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," for which Kay Kamen played a pivotal role in its merchandising strategy. This is reflected in later writings by his subordinate, O.B. Johnston. See Footnote 54.
[3] The international copyright treaty (commonly known as the Berne Convention) includes provisions regarding "applied arts." Each revision of the treaty has sparked discussions about the scope of "applied arts." While the question of whether character merchandise falls within this scope remains unresolved even today, it is hard to believe that Disney has remained indifferent to this issue over such a long time.