Thread regarding Mattel Inc. layoffs

RD + SL should be released as a package back into the wild. save some overhead from the most useless of the top

Hoping Mattel will do well for friends still there, but with RD in charge, expect nothing. He's the guy who spent a ton of money on Barbie's 50th and claimed she was back - but wasn't. RD was the guy who spent a ton of money on Barbie Shanghai and it failed miserably. RD isn't visionary - he's just someone who can spend money. WiFi dream house? Why? The item sold poorly and was being marked down well before Christmas due to sagging sales. And their new $300 competitor to Amazon Echo? WTF?

Gotta love all the Holiday Cheer here @ MattHell but could be worse folks, could be in Alepo getting shot at or worse yet, in Chicago getting shot at..................Love the rocket scientist who confused RD with research )~

ah the douche responses from the folks who make coming to work a joy for everyone. keep that morale up folks! it'll keep you from going postal once that rolling layoffs start up in feb. 2017

Also, to the Einstein who is asking who SL is: if you don't know it means you don't work here, if you don't work here then why comment?

Hey, Dopey - RD are initials for an exec, not for Research & Design.

is suze or SL the once bloated marketing VP?

Suze outta go. Keep r&d but allow them to create. The farkin bean counters have squeezed creativity down to the point of allowing them to be accountants and guess what? A 3 year olds interest is far more demanding than that of an MBA's roi study analysis. Mattel is a toy company, not a think tank

My money is on RD being the first one to go, and then (thank God) SL! It's just a sin that with all the resources taken away from other brands to bolster Barbie, the team can't even get the software operating correctly for the new Dream House. And don't go blaming ToyTalk, Barbie team - it's YOUR responsibility to oversee them - no one else's. ToyBox? Just a bunch of crap thrown together with no plan, no thought to execute and no leadership from SL on financial ROI. And by giving a bigger dividend on less sales than a year ago, we're just digging a deeper hole for ourselves. Time to get more cereal people on board, because the current Toy people in charge certainly don't know what their doing and resoundingly shown they can't do their jobs. Hell, a pack of monkeys would be better at it: Read on:

Mattel's heyday may have come and gone, making it a stock shareholders likely will want to get out of heading into the New Year.

The company's first major blow came this year when Walt Disney handed the Barbie maker's long-held Disney Princess contract to rival Hasbro . Mattel had made the Disney Princess dolls since 2000.

Last week, analysts at Zacks Investment Research cut Mattel stock rating to a "sell" from a "hold," noting that the shares have underperformed in its industry group this year.

"Lack of innovative schemes for brand awareness and brand innovation has been hurting the company's revenues and point of sale momentum," Zacks said in a Dec. 20 note. "Also, sluggish performance of certain segments and brands along with [the] loss of the Disney deal has added to the concerns."

Historically, Mattel has put up an earnings per share growth rate of 3.1%, compared to the industry average of about 21%. The company is expected to grow at a rate of 1.4% for the 2016 full year, while the industry average is estimated to increase at a 14% rate, according to the Nasdaq.

And amid a drop in toy sales -- NPD Group reported on Dec. 21 that during the sixth week of the holiday season, revenue from toys declined 9% - Mattel's toys are slipping in popularity compared with Hasbro products.

On Christmas morning, many parents who purchased the app-controlled, voice-monitored Barbie Hello Dreamhouse - users can control the functions of the house by voice command - were far from pleased with Mattel. When children went to play with the high-tech doll house, they were greeted with an "Error Code 18" message, which turned out to be a wireless network issue that disabled the voice control.

Twitter user @jimmymcarthur wrote "A true modern Christmas. I'm tweeting @ToyTalk and @Barbie about my problems with our Dreamhouse wifi. WTF kind of world is this?"

The company behind the technology for the doll house, ToyTalk, responded to the complaints in a statement that advised users to turn the Barbie Hello Dreamhouse off for 15 seconds and then power it back up.

Mattel did not return a request for comment so it is unclear how many people were affected.

Meanwhile, Target reported on its third-quarter earnings call in November that Disney Princess dolls plus board games by Hasbro dominated its toy sales.

And Hasbro's Pie Face Showdown - in which two players compete to find which will be smushed in the face by a dollop of whipped cream - was Amazon's best-selling toy during the Black Friday, Cyber Monday shopping weekend.

Mattel is expected to release its 2016 fourth quarter earnings report on Feb. 3, when analysts surveyed at Factset are anticipating the company to post earnings of 72 cents a share on $1.97 billion in revenue, compared year-over-year to earnings of 63 cents a share on $2 billion in revenue.

Shares of Mattel were slightly lower to $27.50 late Thursday morning.

Darn right. There's nothing like cost restructuring, elimination of of facilities in high cost geographies, and maximizing stock holder value to make the holidays more cheerful.

Oh why? Did the top heavy strategy of creating more executive positions ever not work?!? You mean a content group with added VPs and above and no clear plan to gain an edge in today's market is not going to make investors confident? You mean SL and her redundant group of toybox outsiders is not a wow? I can't believe that.

No worries. An activist investor will drain the swamp soon and get the price back with a top tier "leadership" team in place that understands strategy, brands and the digital world. A first for Mattel.