Disney presents the official 2015 Expo Mascot

Disney presented the official mascot for the 2015 Milan Expo in Milan sunday 15 2013.

The original design is a family of eleven different fruit and vegetables forming a friendly, smiling face: a watermelon head, garlic nose, banana smile and orange cheeks, together with mango, apple, radish, pear, fig, blue corn, and pomegranate inspired by the artist Arcimboldo.

A collage of 11 different fruits and vegetables representing the integration of different people and cultures from around the world, the fruit theme was chosen due to it’s symbolic value linked to diversity, nutrition, energy, and productiveness, all represented in a single food group that is eaten by people of all cultures and civilisetions on five continents regardless of their age or place in society.

Disney won the bid to design the tasty mascot and also the sole concession to the multi million euro merchandising business expected to ring up over €150 million in sales, of which a 10% cut goes directly to Expo SpA, an ambitious figure albeit decidedly less than the €2 billion of goods sold with the Haibao mascot for the 2010 Shanghai Expo.

Product launches and sales of the clothing, soft toys, stationary and food with packaging carrying the 2015 Milan Expo Mascot will begin at Christmas 2014, six months before the opening of Universal event in Milan on the 31 May 2015.

“We are delighted that Expo Milano 2015 has chosen Disney to create the mascot,” said Daniel Frigo, President and Country Manager of The Walt Disney Company Italia. “Leveraging the emblematic message ‘Feed the Planet, Energy for Life’, allowed us to give free rein to our creativity and story-telling, which are core to Disney’s DNA.