Cinderella's Carrousel Renamed Prince Charming Regal Carrousel

Renaming Gone Wrong
Disney is renaming the Cinderella Golden Carrousel. Effective June 1, the attraction will now be known as the Prince Charming Regal Carrousel. No reason for the change has been cited. Could it be that Disney is looking to attract more boys to the over-princessed park amusements? If so, this name change is misguided and is already upsetting park goers and Cinderella fans.

How the Carrousel Renaming Blunders
My bet is Disney will spin the Carrousel name back to Cinderella as fast as you can say “bippity boppity boo” because:

• Disney has of offended tradition. Some brand names are so beloved and ingrained that they should never be touched.
• Disney is messing with Continuity. Continuity drives the theme park business. Parents bring their kids to Disney World so their kids can experience the same wonder that they experienced, changing a signature experience this way hurts that continuity.
• Disney is trying to brand around a non-entity. Cinderella is a known and worshipped character. Prince Charming has no story, no personality. He doesn’t even have a name. The rats have bigger roles than he does. (And didn’t a different prince of the same name also woo Snow White?)
• Cinderella is iconic to the Disney brand.  The company logos don’t feature Prince Charming’s castle–it has always been The Cinderella Castle (though legally speaking, through rules of primogeniture, the structure belongs to the prince and she gets to live there only by virtue of her marriage).
• Changing the name doesn’t change the product.  Boys aren’t going to suddenly clamber to get on this ride just because of the name change. The scenes painted on the ride remain the same. The story Disney made up and released with the name change is not one that  kids will experience. It is utterly irrelevant to them. As irrelevant as the name.

Important Renaming Considerations
Have a clear strong customer-driven reason to change and know how the proposed new name will be viewed by the public.  That means research and test, test, test.  The benefits have to outweigh the cost.  It goes without saying, the new name has to be better than the old.  Cinderella is one of the world’s iconic brand names–old Prince What’s-His_Name.

P.S. This Isn’t The First Name Change for the Carrousel
The attraction is a true antique. It was made in Philadelphia in 1917 for the Olympic Park in Maplewood, New Jersey, where it was known as the Liberty Carrousel.  Walt Disney bought it in 1967, moved it to Orlando, restored it and renamed it the Cinderella Golden Carrousel.