It seems to me that this company has lost its compass and the leadership is left without ideas.
I made the cardinal mistake of not leaving here when I had a great offer, thinking that Mattel had a future. This company is struggling. This has long been no place for people who intend to do something with their careers. If you want to grow you gotta move on.
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Mattel was also too far behind the curve when it came to keeping up with technology and digitizing content. Now it's just catch-up or hope that the pandemic comes back stronger so parents at home buy more barbies.
Re: "I agree with the other poster, Ever After High was also a huge mistake, making Disney mad and moving to Hasbro."
Forget StockDown; C-Down is to blame, 100%. Anybody at Disney can tell you he is the guy who gambled on Never After High... and lost it all.
Was he fired? No. Punished? No. Rewarded? Yes! Promoted? Like a skyrocket. He is the posterboy for failing upwards.
With the unlikeable, unlikely likes of Y-not, RD, CD and the Good Man in control, only short-term consultants have a future at Mattel.
When we had consultants in and ki---d tens of millions of dollars of product to go to the “core of the core”, under Stockton. These consultants weren’t even familiar with the toy industry. We never replaced the categories or items that were ki---d and other toy companies took the self space and categories we abandoned.
From there we bounced from one bad CEO to the next.
I agree with the other poster, Ever After High was also a huge mistake, making Disney mad and moving to Hasbro.
stockton, ever after high = losing disney princess licensing, the buffalo in NYC not being able to bring in any licenses.
I don't know, but by the time I joined the company when Stockton was CEO things had already gone bad in a serious way and they've been in turn around mode ever since. That was about 10 years ago.
Probably when Nixon visited China and stirred up the market in Taiwan.
Mattel - and Hasbro - quaking.
Of course there have been slips and slides around since then - but that was the start.
Oh - and of course Child Advertising.
Advertising products to children under the age of consent.
Several EU countries have forbidden that now, but another Mattel mis-take.
Sell to the responsible parent(s).
Baby Doodie not aimed that way.
Against most cultural norms globally.