Thread regarding Mattel Inc. layoffs

Just wait until FROZEN 2 comes out! Who is going to even want a Barbie?

Do consumers in 2019 even give a sh*t about a brands heritage? Does reminding people of the fact a brand is really old drive POS? Seriously asking.

We could have used all of the money spent on the bullst 60th anniversary celebrations to fund all of the marketing campaigns we wanted. Think FP will get that much of a celebration next year for the 90th? No f*ing way. Largest brand in the portfolio (FP in case you didn’t know) will get squat.

Sadly even if there was a hit product in the 19 line of the hot mess that is the portfolio, it couldn’t save the company out of the ever deepening hole it’s in.

And Barbie cultists dance around the fire of her 60th pretending relevance. As the last poster says no one cares.

You’ll all be lucky if you even end up back in the garage.

I think the issue here is that those supporting Barbie are too young to see the larger and longer story that is ending here.

For decades Mattel has acquired companies for 1 reason - to make up for the decline of Barbie. They buy these companies solely to bolster their numbers and to live to fight another day in figuring out what’s wrong with Barbie.

American Girl, Fisher-Price and Thomas were GROWING when Mattel bought them. They’ve only declined since Mattel stopped investing in them, as they’d been supported when they were run independently. They are only failing now because they are being supported - and Barbie is being propped up artificially. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy to stop investing and then see a decline. At this stage Barbies marketing budget is higher than its profit! In what Universe does that make any business sense to do, except one where you’re desperate, out of options and too far down a road you can’t turn back on?

FP. AG and Thomas are publicly up for sale. FP has a chance to be sold, but the other two are too wrecked to be of any value. When these entities are eventually sold or liquidated, Mattel will take the money and continue propping up Barbie until the cash runs out. Then what? It won’t have money to prop up Barbie, Barbie won’t be able to sustain itself and will decline at a faster rate.

Look at it this way:

Mattel is like someone who has to sell blood in order to fund a bad substance addiction. At some point the blood is gone. That’s what’s happening to Mattel - it’s gettibg smaller everyday.

Case in point:

Do you really think anyone cares or even notices that it’s Barbie’s 60th? Nope - not even the core Market of 3 - 6 year old girls. They’re playing with Superhero Girls and other character dolls. They aren’t playing with Barbie because Barbie has no character - never has and never will.

You're cherry picking a couple of examples from 5+ years ago while ignoring long term trends. Any brand could use more marketing $, sure, but to suggest that BeatBo was a success that could be repeated at nauseam year after year if only FP had more advertising fails to recognize why the toy was such a big hit (it was they toy design, not the marketing fyi).

FP has certainly had some giant missteps since then, let's not forget the creepy talking CGI babies campaign was only a year ago, but the real issue is they are constantly developing toys that should cost $39.99 and selling them for $59.99 ie. the Rocktopus, which also won a TOTY award by the way.

Dear Last Poster:

If only your story was true. Unfortunately the facts don’t support it:

• since any acquisition, Mattel finance has systematically forced Barbie-like margin requirements on AG, Thomas, and Fisher-Price WITHOUT investing the same amount of money, time and effort that it did in Barbie to achieve those same results.

• those same brands delivered significant margin dollars, when they were properly funded. For example:

• in 2015, Fisher-Price’s marketing budget was $33M - and won Preschool toy of the year, and showing strong single digit growth. In 2019 it’s budget has been cut to $5M - not because of decline but because all $$$ must feed Barbie (that insatiable black hole of a bygone brand).

• in 2014, Thomas had a marketing budget of $7M and showed double digit growth. In 2018 it had no budget. In 2019 they are touting 2 TV drivers because:

• target and Walmart jade threatened to drop the brand

• licensees are already leaving in droves

If brands we’re accountable for their own generation of marketing funds based on Sales, FP would be $3B by now, Thomas would be $600M and Barbie would be $400M.

But since lazy, young, naive analysts are unwilling to dig deeper than Barbie’s performance, Mattel has no choice (and no courage) but to gut its other brands to artificially sustain Barbie.

Why else would a company invest in a brand that exists solely in a long-dormant and irrelevant category like fashion dolls that declines every year for the last decade to a paltry $500M (not to be confused with successful character dolls - there’s a big difference) and not in a $2B preschool, timeless and ever relevant one like FP?

OP, what are you even talking about, you could put 100% of the marketing dollars behind American Girl and you'd still see sales decline that year. There is no such thing as "rightful marketing dollars" you id--t.

Imagine you owned a small toy business and you made five lines of products, a line of dolls, a line of cars, baby toys, construction toys and high end large dolls.

Two of these lines are popular, make good profit and, best of all, have sales growth YOY. The other three brands are all in various stages of decline, with one in an absolute death spiral, losing 30+% sales YOY for many years. One is has hardly a fraction of the market share of it's incredibly successful competitor, and the third keeps losing listings because it's toys price value is completely out of line with the market.

Now, it's time to allocate your limited advertising budget across your five product lines, how much money do you think you'd dump into the three failing lines? Or maybe you'd focus on the two popular brands that are already growing? You don't need to have an MBA to figure out what's going on at Mattel.

At some point, the blood and money will be rung from the other brands, leaving Barbie and Hot Wheels to wither and expire. Neither brand can sustain the level of advertising and promotion they currently enjoy - it's why the other brands only ever report declines. I work here - I know.

All the reports about Barbie's return are all artificial because she can't sustain the 25% advertising rate and make a profit on her own. Fashion dolls as a category are passé, and yet Mattel keeps making hoping yesteryear returns like Elliot waiting for E.T..