Disney is at it Again!

At the local supermarket, the Delhaize, there are Disney Pixar cards resembling baseball cards, but with Disney characters from recent movies pictured on each. Every 12 Euros or so you spend at the store, you receive a pack that contains 5 cards in hopes of collecting all 216. Also, if you buy certain items you can receive an extra pack (like with a particular box of chicken nuggets). Then, you can spend 5 Euros more to buy a fancy book to hold all your treasured cards.

I drove home thrilled to pieces one day with my 16 packets for the kids. They love collecting these cards and would be just elated when they stepped off the bus and I informed them I had all the packs waiting for them inside. I was the best mommy in the world today!

I had them eating from the palm of my hand that night..."You would like to open another one of your packs? Ok - then finish reading this story to me, hang up your laundry"...you get the point.

It was a brilliant marketing scheme! I was shopping there exclusively - and buying much more than I needed - like 12 boxes of chicken nuggets, just to get some more cards. This was all happening to the point where I was wondering if I was a little crazy until with my limited french, I read a sign walking into the store one day that claimed on Wednesday, September 2, there would be an exchange of Disney Pixar cards from 3:30-5:30. Wow! The kids would love this and it would be such a great way to mix in with the locals. Anticipating the event, the kids of course wanted to try to fill up their books.

Here they are on a bench outside where we did exchange with some people. We had duplicates of various cards, as did other people.

Now, this is the long table set up outside the store with all the die hards (notice how many adults without children are sitting here trying to complete their collections - why do they have to do that? Don't they realize, this is just for the kids?). I was amazed at how seriously some of these people were taking this.

To further my unease I curiously came home and googled Disney Pixar cards on ebay and found some cards were selling for 12 Euros each!

The marketing scheme is over now and my kids each have about 20 cards left to complete their books. I was just going to let them be done until I learned the best kept secret yesterday. You can go on the Delhaize website and order any remaining cards you need for just 20 cents each. We did just that today and within 2 weeks (via mail) we'll hopefully have our much loved books complete!