Despite age difference and cultural “boundaries” worldwide many have found one common thing to like, the Disney TV series Kim Possible. This show, targeted mostly at preteens, has become a worldwide phenomenon. The fan base for this show is not only massive, but diverse as well. Even within my own home it ranges from my 13-year-old sister to my 39-year-old father watching it faithfully every chance it is on. It’s a great show that many families can watch together. Unfortunately, Kim Possible is reaching its 65th episode. For Disney, since it has come under the direction of a man most know only as Eisner, it has been tradition to cancel all shows after episode 65 despite popularity. It’s a get rich program that has worked for Disney so far. While Mr. Eisner should be respected for trying to keep his company afloat, this plan cannot continue. He has canceled really popular and quality shows, like Gargoyles, because he’s afraid it can’t last longer than that. He has now set his sights on the very popular teen hero, Kim Possible. What can we do about? Some would say petitions and letters are the answer. I’m here to tell you that they won’t. Eisner care too much about making money and, let’s face it, we aren’t stockholders. We don’t carry enough sway with that alone. We are, however, consumers and that gives us a big advantage. I would like to propose a new plan that would force Mr. Eisner to realize exactly where it is his money comes from. I would like to put forward the idea of a boycott of all Disney products along side our petitions and letters.

Most of you are probably going to think the idea ridiculous. So many people buy Disney products that it won’t matter what a handful of fans think. Let me turn the question around. How many people buy canned tuna fish on a regular basis? The number must be in the hundreds of millions. Yet, a well organized and publicized boycott led successfully to safer fishing nets and less dolphin deaths. No matter how small the boycott it does one thing that makes all the difference. It creates bad publicity. Companies, no matter how large or small, cannot afford bad publicity. If enough of us got together to boycott Disney products after Eisner makes it official that no more Kim Possible episodes will be produced, and if we alert the media to our efforts, then Mr. Eisner’s wallet will suffer more than he wants it to.

The first thing we need to do, however, is to write Mr. Eisner and inform him of our plan along with the petitions. According to Conscientious Consuming must do two key things, it must “communicate the reasons for the boycott to the public [and] communicate the reasons for the boycott to the boycotted company. In some cases, when the companies were presented good reasons to change their behavior (the threat of a boycott and its negative publicity), they changed it” (online). We must inform Mr. Eisner of our intention as well as the public if we are to be successful. Perhaps just the threat of what we can do will allow Mr. Eisner to change his mind. We can also call more people to our cause if we expand our protest to not only bring back Kim Possible, but also to also take Disney back to quality programming. Take a look at the new show “Brandy and Mr. Whiskers” and you may see why I think this change necessary. It’s much to Nickelodeon like to be on a Disney Channel.

The second thing we need to do, should our threats not intimidate Mr. Eisner, is to clearly support the other animation companies. Instead of going to Disney movies, we will go to Warner Brothers or, more especially, we will support DreamWorks. Disney may seem like the tycoon of the animation world, but they are not with out competitors. For a boycott to be successful we need to not only put across the message that we won’t support Disney until a promise is made to try and bring back quality television, but that we will support their competitors that do so.

The third thing we will have to do if Mr. Eisner does not take us seriously is get as public as possible. Considering this is a case of little people against giant it should not be too difficult. If we must go through with it, it seems important that we get the media’s attention. To do that, I would encourage you all to write in to your local newspapers. Don’t try writing to the big guys, but the little ones. If enough small papers report it, the big ones will follow. Public image and publicity of our cause is everything. In their outline for successful boycotts, Conscientious Consumer also states, “successful boycotts rely on damaging both the sales and image of the offending company, the visibility of violations is important. The more visible violations and violators are, the more public pressure can be applied” (online). In order to truly make it work we ourselves will not have only have to go against Disney, but try and discourage others from buying Disney products. Go to your local movie theatre and protest outside the theatre housing the current Disney movie. Inform mothers that, when they buy their children Disney products, they are supporting the decline of positive and educational television for their children as well as the traditional Disney family entertainment. It will take work on our part. We will have to find logical reasoning behind our arguments, we will have to sacrifice time, money, and energy. We’ll have to be willing to print flyers and hand them out, to educate people to our cause. In short, we have to be willing to make ourselves public as well as our cause.

Another way in which we can generate publicity is to create a webpage specific to the boycott and have a link to it from all the major Kim Possible sites on the Internet. I don’t know who will make this page, though I would be more than happy to do it if no one else will. Someone who is an effective speaker and good with HTML so they can make the page professional ought to do it. Getting Kim Possible fans world wide aware of what we are doing will not only boost the number of people who can boycott but our publicity. It will also increase the number of dollars lost to Disney.

Some would argue with me that the only way to save Kim Possible is to show Mr. Eisner how popular she is buying buying the products. This will not work, because it will teach him that he can still put money in his wallet and cancel a show. To many people have tried this way of stopping the show and have made canceling a show more cost effective than keeping it going. The boycott will not only prove Kim’s popularity by the sheer number, but also prove once and for all to Mr. Eisner that canceling a show for a profit is not okay. Angering the people that supply you with money is not okay. If we can generate enough publicity, Mr. Eisner will be forced to give in to our demands to save face. This plan will work. There are massive numbers of successful boycotts that we can look for as examples. Conscientious Consumer admonishes us to continue boycotting things because “the bottom line is that companies survive on consumer dollars. The power consumers have is their dollars and the influence they exert comes from their consumer choices. If a company realizes that their conduct or actions are costing them dollars in sales or profits, they will change them” (online).

“Conscientious Consumer”. April 16, 2005. http://www.con-suming.com/Keys_of_successful_boycott.htm