Thread regarding Mattel Inc. layoffs

You think Hasbro makes great toys? Do you actually open any of them up, use them and then look at the price? They are all "dog toys" with no features and Hasbro has ransomed their soul by completely flipping to licensed product rather than their own brands, for the most part.

Wall Street has been swayed by the charismatic way Brian has spun their successes with licensed product and diverted attention away from their failures (Battleship anyone?). They have layoffs constantly at that place, but they do it in onesies and twosies so they don't flag big volatility and given the impression they are solid. One day, investors will realize that they don't actually own Star Wars and Marvel, and then the stock will be hit.

As for JC, she's smart and adaptable - focusing only on the toy business rather than the entire brand and what they can represent amongst all lines of business, is suicide - something she can discern, and others can't.

What I can't fathom is that you design monkeys all pay taxes, buy groceries and go on vacation and act like you don't have to work. You don't get paid because " you make great toys" - you get paid because what you work on makes money, and the combination of all the efforts to bring it to market work well to convince a lot of people to buy it. The extended revenue that comes from content, licensing and live events can be as valuable as the toy line itself.

What's troubling is that you keep acting and talking like you work in Santa's workshop and don't have to be accountable for the factors that you must deliver on without excuses. Has management messed things up? Sure - they have. Will they be around for long? No - they never are - they'll change out starting in January. But to blame everything on them and be willingly oblivious to the factors that shape the market is INSULTING and OFFENSIVE - stop being NAIVE, we can't afford your simple minded thinking. This isn't the 80's - it's 2016 and the business has already changed and you still have your head in the sand like an ostrich.

Mattel has been shooting itself in the foot for years now. When I was at Mattel and Mattel was on top we made great toys with cool features. They looked great and lasted more than a month. Then we had a slow year and the layoffs started. Management panicked and decided we needed to start saving money which in itself is a good thing but so many of the cuts came at the exspense of the product itself. Play features were removed, deco was gone, materials got cheap. Where we once had a colorful playset with lights and sounds and extras with a sturdy construction that would last for years, we started making flimsy one color sets with very basic movement and cheap useless molded extra pieces. You can buy the same things down on Canal street in Manhattan. The magic was costed out.

After we switched to making cheap product, and surprise, that didn't work, the brains at the top though "we need to get younger creative people. They are hip and will know what to make." so they started to get rid of the "older designers". That is how my years at Fisher Price ended. Every designer in my department was let go one by one in order of seniority and age leaving a whole department of "hip young" millennials with no experience to save Mattel. How's that working out?

That also means all the competition now has a lot of talented experienced new workers wanting to stick it to Mattel.

Smart.

You mean run like Hasbro? By Brian, who has been in the toy industry for YEARS, including his stint with Bandai before Hasbro? Who understands what great design and relationships in the industry mean for the bottom line? Where talent creates, not stamps a decades old, tired Barbie mug? Where the quality of the product is not secondary to a penny saved? Where they invest in the long term, not hack muscle and bone in a desperate attempts to preserve the dividend (which is really a meaningless task on the big scheme of things?)

Yeah, that kind of person. NOT transplants from food industry who have ZERO understanding of the above. Whose idea of the cutting edge products is "The Toy Box" TV show, Hello Barbie, or ThingMaker, among others.

Do us a favor, and do not try to prepare employees and investors for the JC ascend. Because she would truly be a terrible choice.

her new ones or the old ones that could strangle an elephant?

To the HR troll that wrote "Intriguing to think this means RD won't get the job... but that's not what it means.", please do your homework and look at history from both Mattel and any other company.

A search firm is NEVER engaged unless there is no faith in the internal candidates. They didn't hire one when JB was made queen, and they didn't when BS was made king. They DID when BE was given the CEO role. RD has been try to ascend to the throne for 2 years and is incapable of understanding the commercial, logistical and financial side of the business (guess what? marketing and design are just parts of the puzzle, but not the whole puzzle).

The reason they give the bs line is that they do not want the stock to tank in the middle of the 4th quarter when all eyes are on performance. They want everyone to think that RD still has a chance but don't be stupid and naïve, he's out. In fact, he already has been told and is getting paid well to exit gracefully, so don't lament.

As for searching outside, Mattel MUST find someone of a business mind OUTSIDE of the toy industry. It's not a toy company, you design monkeys - it's a business that has to be run profitably and with a hard view on the bottom line. It's not Geppetto's work shop where we all have to make good toys. Really? Do you understand about making money?!

I would still sniff her panties. Mmmm yum

At least now SL can fail upwards being as light as a feather and not a boulder! hahahahahahahahaha!!!

All - focus on SL's job performance, not her appearance. Being a poor leader and failing upwards has nothing to do with how much or little she weighed or weighs. Bringing in issues like weight, etc. detracts from the message of poor performance. Then again, with others like SC being rewarded for nosediving Barbie 3 years in a row by moving to another group vs. being fired, failing upwards is the norm.

At least no one will have to worry about her sinking that boat with all that weight loss though it will be easier to push her off the boat and watch her drown.

SL gets shuffled from one job to the next and succeeds at none of them. No one wants to work with her. I guess that means her next stop will be the top spot. Man the lifeboats.

wait you mean all the tonnage SL dropped wasn't for her ascension to the throne?

RD has shown he isn't the answer. Unless the investors want more of the same. It is hard to belived there isn't a better candidate in toydom. Please pray they don't bring is someone from an unrelated field who has no idea what makes a good toy.

Agree with last poster - it just means they are doing due diligence. would be surprised if Richard doesn't get it.

Intriguing to think this means RD won't get the job... but that's not what it means. Instead, the board is simply doing its due diligence the evaluate all internal/external candidates, which didn't really happen last time when BS was made King (we all know how that turned out). Even though there's a clear heir apparent, the Board isn't going to risk making what appears to be a rushed decision. They will make sure the world knows that they evaluated and vetted every viable candidate... before choosing RD. Despite what the papers say, RD is very much the front-runner and anyone who doubts that is simply mistaken.

Throw a rock and hit someone more qualified than our current crop of a-- clowns. We couldn't assemble a more clueless, less talented team of buffoons if we tried. If we fired the lot of them and simply left those chairs empty, this ship would right itself faster. Use the millions saved in salary to staff design up properly. Without experienced toy people and innovation, we are paddling toward the falls.

No one on the inside wants to inherit this mess.

What this means is that the coronation of King RD ain't gonna happen :)

And neither will it ever happen for Queen SL

My bet is on Princess JC - she's the only one with the depth of experience to make it happen from within

The shroud of ambiguity of the Exec Team is about to be lifted...... and it's gonna be ugly under there