At the Nagano Olympics in 1998 executives from the Walt Disney Company noticed attendees trading small enameled pins. Each pin commemorated an aspect of a participating country’s culture, an Olympic event, or an aspect of the games e.g. the opening ceremony. Being canny marketers the Disney execs brought the concept to their theme parks. 12 years later the pins are a resounding success, available around every turn in their theme parks.
The pins interesting from a customization perspective for three reasons:
1. The manufacturing processes similar to those of laser cutting, CNC milling and “2.5D” custom manufacturing techniques. It wouldn’t be hard for a well equiped garage to knock out similar products.
2. They produce limited runs to maintain exclusivity. The pin business is robust, but every individual pin is limited in its production run. This feeds into the customers desire to be unique.
3. There is a subculture creating “Fantasy” pins. Often these take the Disney characters in salacious directions, but some create artistic homages to under represented themes.
While not truly a mass customized product this product line shows the infiltration of the limited run/customer driven thought process into the core of one of the world’s largest consumer brands.
