It was mid-September, and I was standing in line for a kids’ train ride when a guy’s shirt caught my eye. It was royal blue, covered with Star Wars starfighters — X-wings, B-wings, A-wings. The whole alphabet soup. Ten years ago, I would have bought that shirt on sight. This time, I realized I didn’t care at all. Every ounce of passion I once had for George Lucas’s universe was gone. Somewhere along the way, Disney killed it. That moment forced me to confront the myths we keep repeating about Disney, because the numbers tell a very different story. The company’s recent films lost more than $1 billion, park attendance is stagnating and Disney+ subscriptions are declining. This is not a business on the rise. And yet, Disney is still printing money. That’s when everything clicked — Disney isn’t an entertainment or theme park company. It’s a merchandising company, and it’s exceptionally good at it. I started studying Disney’s billion-dollar merchandising engine. Five key marketing lessons emerged that marketers should take note of. Lesson 1: Emotional real estate > physical real estate It’s easy to obsess over real estate — ad slots, endcaps at Target, SEO rank. I’ve even seen fixation over the real estate of an office manager’s desk. Disney doesn’t play that game. It focuses on emotional real estate, understanding that while physical placement is temporary, emotional attachment lasts. If you own emotional real estate, customers seek you out. If you don’t, you’re forced to fight with thousands…