Mattel is failing because we lost leadership position in fashion dolls

You people are ridiculous. To figure out why Mattel is in the bad shape it's in, just look at the annual report (it's free BTW on-line). Mattel's margin has dropped by over 5% and it's revenue has dropped over $1 billion. It's not because of management salaries and parachute packages. It's because we've lost our leadership position in fashion dolls and can't get it back.

Fashion doll margins are almost TWICE what all the other brands deliver. Fashion dolls SUBSIDIZE the bottom line profit of Mattel. If revenue goes down, it means there are a lot less fashion dolls being sold. That then means the size of the subsidy is dramatically reduced against the rest of the business, and the margin percentage drops.

The stock price rises and falls based on revenue and margin - nothing else. The only way to restore back to acceptable levels of margin % and revenue is to dramatically increase sales by $1 billion with products that make as much margin as fashion dolls. Guess how many categories and companies can offer that? There's only one - LEGO - and mattel isn't in a position to acquire a company that large and profitable.

SO the answer then is.......................the company CANNOT possibly return to profitability. Barbie has lost HALF of it's revenue in the last 10 years, with no plan or hope of increasing. Even if there was a blockbuster movie to temporarily lift the brand, it will not last long and will not reset the baseline. This is all because of short-sighted leadership from the Board of Directors only interested in keeping the dividend in tact. Too late, the new CEO has cut it, but it will need to be eliminated in order to take every penny and re-engineer the company to not be so reliant on one category (fashion dolls) as it has.

Mattel has stayed at the party too long and now it's time to go home.

Reposted from @OVXQb5M-2hkd for being on point. It is as simple as this.

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It's layoff Thursday! Hopefully the spinning wheel of destiny lands on msnore's name. The great oracle of hindsight and useless as foresight.

Thursday thunderdome!

My guesa is that the all knowing Dr.Snore must have compromising photos of people in high places :)

Why is Dr Snore still there?

Lol! Sorry for all the castaways still left on Mattel Island, but only joy comes to my heart to see such an arrogant company, greedy board of directors and entitled management all burn to the ground! It's fun to see evil crushed! 😁

Perhaps the new CEO MG is reading this blog after all and there may be some hope going forward.

We still need need to cull out many more EVP's, SVP's, VP's, Directors, Sr. Mangers who got promoted forward and created this mess we've been in for the past 7 yrs.

Glad to here VP TWrong on the Barbie Engineering side & GC non drawing just taliking Designer promoted VP idiot finally got hit but I'm sure his white shoes will end up somewhere else. Maybe the manager who drives the red ambulance van can deliver him somewhere as he also wears his looks alike white shoes?............

Why is CD the ClicheClown still drawing a $250,000.00 paycheck? This swamp makes Houston look like a wadding pool.

Drain it MG. RD still here, really?????????????

Swish boy's been here way tooooo long....since the mid 80's I believe. Time for some new blood to be transfused into Matty! Then maybe we CAN, as a previous poster said, turn this place around yet.

Likely too little too late. Recruiters are being deluged with calls from Mattel employees. They continue to add to the reputation that the company is a wreck and the bad culture can't be overcome. Funny, since when RD joined he was going to change all of it. Not a chance.

What is swishy doing now? Does anyone even know? SVP of ?

IF Goodie's really gone then that's a big step in the right direction. Throw a rock and hit someone more qualified and less corrupt. Is his pal Swishie next? Well past his prime. Maybe we CAN turn this place around yet.

the scotsman publically executed goodman yesterday, delivering a fate long overdue. gibbons also presented the radical restructuring plans for the development organization, no doubt striking fear into many of the useless VPs who just saw their SVP boss lose his head. the restructuring and the new strategic direction for development and procurement is a major endeavor, but is the company's only hope in the short term, in terms of improving the bottom line. it is a remarkably sound plan, and it can be done, and gibbons will succeed. all for naught if the CEOs strategy for design and marketing fails to grow the top line. time will tell, but there's little of that left.

Agreed. The reliance on the doll category is ultimately unsustainable. The only route to survival is truly diversifying. That means readjusting dividends, accepting different margins, even unfortunately flattening the top part of the org. It sounds like that may be on the way.

Even probably need to sell off assets that cost more to keep than to sell.

Licensing will not save mattel. Investing in their own IP can offer hope. There will be detractors saying monster high was this and that. But at its height it was a 1B business including licensing. So there is a model. Caveat: it takes a lot of things to go right to have a chance of success. But that's where a flatter org might help.

Sure there's still going to be dolls. But there could also be much more.

Agree. I was there 20 years and it sure was fun while it lasted. There were/are lots of management issues but the main reason for the decline is that times have changed. Dolls just aren't as popular as they once were and Mattel has always been dependent on doll sales. Sad--I guess nothing lasts forever.

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Mattel is failing because we lost leadership position in fashion dolls

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