Thread regarding Mattel Inc. layoffs

To the poster who spoke about Hot Wherls T-shirts:
I only wish Mattel would allow it to be a lifestyle brand, but when the Clown was running he said he didn’t believe in CPG licensing (because he and his prematurely gray minion couldn’t make up their mind on whether they wanted to license out the R/C category or not). Small minded toy people who have no experience or capability to run a BUSINESS. This is why the Clown is running all the coloring book designers now.

To the poster who said the Star Wars dolls weren’t for 3-5 year olds:
1) please wake up - it’s not 1992 anymore. The Barbie adult collector marker DOESNT EXIST ANYMORE. Just check eBay and look at the prices.
2) you miss the point - Barbie’s ONLY consumer market IS 3-5 year olds, yetattel wastes time and resources creating couture Star Wars dolls that Star Wars fans hate, and Barbie collectors won’t buy (because there ARE NO Barbie collectors anymore).

It's a scheme called "brushing". You give someone a free product in exchange for a positive review. Take a look at the reviews for any new toy on the Fisher-Price website and in the upper righthand corner it will say something like "reviewer received free product in exchange for a review". They do it on Amazon too. It's incredibly deceptive because it gives the first impression of a high star rating and the only way to tell the reviews have been "brushed" is to go in and read the actual reviews, and even then you need a keen eye to spot the brushed ones.

Mattel has been doing this for years. Falsifying reviews, and giving away product and begging for a good review. I know the European Amazon team do it as a matter of course for each big release and im pretty certain we are guilty of doing it over here too. That's what happens when consumers don't actually want a product

Correction. Mattel is not a lifestyle brand. Nike. Levis. Louis Vuitton are just examples. Hot Wheels is a toy brand. Just because you have shirts and hats available in the market nor passing on your love for a toy brand to your kids does not make you a lifestyle brand. You must be part or play a major role in the daily life of your consumers. That’s the real definition of a lifestyle brand.

"Barbie is also a lifestyle brand, the biggest in the world."

🤣🤣🤣

What happened to the Star Wars Barbie on Amazon. It just disappeared! The dolls were there a week ago.

Yeah, it's the same thing with the Barbie brand. Young girls collect them when they are children, loose interest when they become teens then rediscover them in their adult years. Plus, these women reintroduce the dolls to their daughters and continue the cycle. Barbie is also a lifestyle brand, the biggest in the world. NOBODY is collecting LOL dolls as adults. Sorry MGA, another strike.

Mattel should just knock off LOL directly. Take all the elements of the products- Unboxing from a blind packaged container, 7 surprises individually wrapped, a cheap little doll with rubber clothes and 20 different dolls for each series. Just make sure to put the money into the product for a change. It's that simple.

Ahem, WRT "None of these toy companies are focusing on the collector markets. They all focus on 3-5yr core audiences."... Don't you realize that Hot Wheels is a LIFESTYLE BRAND and boys keep buying and collecting everything Hot Wheels well into their teens? They wear Hot Wheels shirts & backpacks, and they ride their Hot Wheels bikes to high school until they get a car. C'mon man! They live Hot Wheels their entire lives, from drool to drive to drool again! Show me a Hot Wheels casket with a FLAME JOB and I'll buy it!

All this talk of Star Wars and Rosa Parks and that Korean boy band dolls does seem out of touch, especially as LOL OMG dolls are about to execute a scorched earth campaign against Barbie this holiday season. The fact that no one at Mattel had the notion to mix the popularity of unboxing collectables with 12 in fashion dolls over the past 5 years really shows how difficult a time Mattel has in capitalising on even the most obvious of trends. Now LOL is going to eat Barbie's lunch at the worst possible time. 😢

I’ve been freelancing for different toy companies and they do not have $100 dolls or $180 tracksets.
None of these toy companies are focusing on the collector markets. They all focus on 3-5yr core audiences. That’s where the money is. It’s a toy company so they all focus on making and selling toys. If Mattel doesn’t come up with any new product line that’s innovative they will remain in debt and will be gone within 5 years. And the movies will not save them. If they couldn’t succeed with Thomas what makes you think they’ll succeed in making movies?

They're quite expensive at $100 a pop.

I agree Mattel is a mess, but to be fair, the Star Wars Barbies are not intended for a 3-5 year old audience.

This is absolutely halarious if true. They will have lost a credibility with retailers now too. What an embarrassment

Is the suggestion that a few employees are buying them up in mass quantities or that many employees are each buying one. Either way, I know Mattel is a big company but in the grand scheme of things how many products would you have to buy to create the false illusion of demand, and to what end? Seems like a silly idea.

There’s definitely something going on here. I heard from an admin at the tower, the C suite execs are scrambling. More details will surface about this.

Yup, Star Wars Barbies were removed from Amazon! Damn!

Amazon's 100 Hot Toy list just came out. TWO , count them, two Hot Wheels ID SKUs made the list. This Xmas HW ID is gonna be 🔥 🔥 🔥 💰 💰 💰!

OP, And where did you hear this news??

I thought I read somewhere that Hot Wheels ID was selling better than expected. This sounds like fake news.