Licensed Products are NOT the Answer

[ChrisM]

The can be, however certain fundimentals need to be followed. Unfortunately, McFarlane has a poor track record in that department too.

> Most important: the right license. Nacho Libre won't cut it. Beowulf without the
right's to Angelina's license won't cut it.
> Timing, timing, timing. Years too late won't cut it. Nor will months too late. Iron Man
figures, Indiana Jones figures were all on the shelves before the movie opened.
McFarlane tends to get them on the shelf well after.
> Location, location, location. This is a 2-parter.
o McFarlane needs to work with the major retailers on their sections of the store.
At my TRU's, their products are crammed together, misc. other brands products
(sports, military, fantasy) are mixed in with McFarlane stuff. Also, at the same
TRU's the HALO 3 products were shoved into s small corner. Other companies
garner end caps, front of the store placement and creative displays. Additionally,
don't cram potentially successful products like Grinch & Hana Barbera in with
Spawn & Sports. Other companies get special placement for products like
Peanuts and the Rudolf toys (at Christmas time)
o The other aspect of location is branching out. Sales has to WORK on getting new
and innovative retailers to work with. With 2 recent hit movies (Simpsons and
Grinch), why weren't the toys sold at Movie theatres? The Grinch was also a
Broadway hit. Were the toys sold at the theatre? Get Hanna Barbera into
Babies R Us, Kids R Us. Make a deal with Hallmark.
> Scale. Some may agree or disagree, but I think that having the Beowulf line in
multiple scales, hurts sales.
> Design. IMO, McFarlane has the most talented sculptors in the business. Give them
the right designs to sculpt.

The departments responsible for the above, need to be held accountable.
> Licensing needs to get the right licenses / actors rights; and keep timing in mind
> Sales and Marketing needs to make progress with the location issues. I think they
have consistently dropped the ball.
> The new design staff with scale & design - consider having NJ responsible for
design again.

For the right 6 figure salary, I am available to help make it happen ;)

Ok, let the commets ensue...

[evilundertaker]

i will cite The Matrix figures as an example...they were released the exact same day as The Matrix Reloaded hit theatres,and people ate them up....series 2 hit after Revolutions came out,and sat there....Austin Powers as well...they came out in the summer of 1999,same as the movie,and sold out.....

timing has always been a problem.....sometimes it doesn't matter,with a line like MM,where you're going on nostalgia to sell the line....but too many lines come out after the licence has lost it's heat,rendering them unsellable,except at clearance....

[Masked Moron]

About the timing.... it takes time to make the figs & get them out, and the danger of that is that movies often have delays, or major changes...

Prime example being the MM5 Toothfairy.
http://www.spawn.com/toys/movies/mm5/toothfairy/images/mm5_toothfairy_photo_01_md.jpg

That's how she was orrignally going to look in the movie "Darkness Falls".... but then they decided to scrap that design, and go with (for the most of the movie) a large shapeless black robe with a white mask, and when unmasked, this...
http://www.best-horror-movies.com/images/Darkness-Falls-tooth-fairy.jpg

The movie was also suposed to be titled "The Tooth Fairy", which is what the mini-poster that came with her said... It went through a few other titles before they decided on Darkness falls.

[Uwe]

I like the docile McF tooth fairy more than the movie thing.

[Masked Moron]

I like the docile McF tooth fairy more than the movie thing.

So do I... but by the time all the changes to the movie were done, the fig had litterally no obvious ties to the movie.

[ChrisM]

About the timing.... it takes time to make the figs & get them out, and the danger of that is that movies often have delays, or major changes...

The movie was also suposed to be titled "The Tooth Fairy", which is what the mini-poster that came with her said... It went through a few other titles before they decided on Darkness falls.

Excellent point. I think the same happened with the 'Future' Jason too.

[Avatar_of_Chaos]

are you talking about Jason X?

that movie came out with the right look and the right poster and the detail was awesome. the only problem with him was a scale issue.

[thejikas]

i think matrix series 2 didnt do well because of two main things:

1. weird poses - agent smith's american football stance, jumping neo's weird twist, and falling trinity's stiff body

2. irregular scales - niobe & trinity came out too small compared to the rest


the only excellent figure in that series is sitting morpheus

[Avatar_of_Chaos]

which are?

[thejikas]

...

[Avatar_of_Chaos]

nice edit... I can see both of those putting off some people

[SlayKnotV1]

are you talking about Jason X?

that movie came out with the right look and the right poster and the detail was awesome. the only problem with him was a scale issue.

Jason X was suppose to be a part of MM 4 but they switched him with freddy and moved Jason to MM 5 :D

[Avatar_of_Chaos]

I know about the delay, I thought he was talking about a problem with the figure itself as compared the character like with the Tooth Fairy.

[Mr.Sci-Fi]

> Location, location, location. This is a 2-parter.
o McFarlane needs to work with the major retailers on their sections of the store.
At my TRU's, their products are crammed together, misc. other brands products
(sports, military, fantasy) are mixed in with McFarlane stuff. Also, at the same
TRU's the HALO 3 products were shoved into s small corner. Other companies
garner end caps, front of the store placement and creative displays. Additionally,
don't cram potentially successful products like Grinch & Hana Barbera in with
Spawn & Sports. Other companies get special placement for products like
Peanuts and the Rudolf toys (at Christmas time)


Companies pay stores to have endcap placement, there's a cost to placement.



The other aspect of location is branching out. Were the toys sold at the theatre?

I've asked myself that for years now, why don't the theaters sell the toys. You would think that since they don't make anything on the actual movie but only the concessions that they would want to expand their sales. Possible answers are, there's a licensing agreement between a theater and the movie companies that prohibit such sales, no theater has just ever tried, they have tried and it failed once and never tried again. It's just not toys the theaters could be selling, it's general memorabilia too, movie posters , soundtracks, music scores and even the novelization in some cases. Maybe it's just movie theater taboo to sell more than pop, candy and popcorn?

[Avatar_of_Chaos]

All of my old local movie theatres used to have memorabilia shops. Some sold toys, but prints, cells, frames and shirts were the main items. They're all out of business, but it was nice to be able to buy the poster after walking out of the film.

You have to remember that selling that kind of stuff requires space, not just for displays buy for storage. That means holding durable inventory. I'd be interested to see how an operation the size of say Carmike might handle that but I think it would be a tough sell. I'd also like to see where they would put it and get traffic flowing through that section of the theatre.

[ChrisM]

Companies pay stores to have endcap placement, there's a cost to placement...

I've asked myself that for years now, why don't the theaters sell the toys. You would think that since they don't make anything on the actual movie but only the concessions that they would want to expand their sales. Possible answers are, there's a licensing agreement between a theater and the movie companies that prohibit such sales, no theater has just ever tried, they have tried and it failed once and never tried again. It's just not toys the theaters could be selling, it's general memorabilia too, movie posters , soundtracks, music scores and even the novelization in some cases. Maybe it's just movie theater taboo to sell more than pop, candy and popcorn?

To your first comment, it's an investment for sure, but the perceived return on that investment should be there for licensed products.

To the second, making that kind of deal is something an innovative company would do. I think Nomals mentioned in a different thread that they could pursue selling sports figures at the stadiums and military figures at the PX at military bases - this would be another example of innovative selling.

[Avatar_of_Chaos]

to be honest, none of that (second part) would be considered innovative selling. those are natural environments for selling the product that haven't been tapped or have a barrier preventing them from being tapped. it wouldn't take much of a change in thought, business model or marketing. on the sports side they're already in the Sideline Stores and a lot of the Hometown Sports shops albiet with solid cases of the hometown player.

they're also the two most often presented ideas I've seen since sports started and a few years ago when the military line started. I've even suggested them, among other things in some emails. to a lot of us, it seems like a no brainer.

I do recall them making some headway with new retailers awhile ago when they said they'd have product on shelves at retail pharmacies such as CVS and with a special counter display, but haven't seen anything since the announcement. I do wonder what happened with that because I used to work in those type of stores and that was a very innovative idea. Most of the toys sold through that channel come from a side section that has extremely limited quantities and most of the remaining inventory sits for years which leads to minimal ordering and taking some odd assortments from distributors that sell them at a favorable cost. They're usually tucked away near the stationary and school supplies but they're never highlighted and are one of the areas of the store with the longest inventory turnover rates which is why they're hardly ever restocked.

Actually having a counter display for a case of say Troy Polamalu figures in Pittsburgh-area CVS pharamacies would probably sell pretty well during football season, especially if the team was in the playoffs. There's a whole slew of shoppers who would never see the product otherwise and it's a store frequented by fans who might not be collectors but who would want the product.

The problem would be pricing. It would have to be right to get them to move. I don't see non-sports being able to work there regardless of what price you sold them at.

That would take money. It would take paying out to get that prime spot on the counter. And that's another problem with McFarlane toys that Hasbro and Mattel don't have. They do promotions all the time. They offer coupons, rebates, sales and discounts during peak times using their allowances. They advertise the hell out of a lot of products in magazines, all over the internet and on television. They've got the pockets for that kind of stuff. McF relies primarily on word-of-mouth and news coverage. They don't take out a lot of ads. They use their comics as a source of advertising but at the same time readership is down. They do have this site, which is big because it's a solid place to send out and collect info. But at the same time it's not reaching or persuading purchasing behavior the way that a 25% off sale on Spawn figures may have at TRU that was advertised in the weekly circulars or say a 5% rebate if you send in your UPC's and reciept and bought a whole set of Zodiacs.

it's not just the innovative stuff that's not getting done. it's also a lot of the standard fare that comes with playing with mass-retail. there's a lot of different avenues that can be taken to keep things going. I don't know if anything I've said would work let alone fit TMP's culture, situation and business model nor that if they changed to accomodate that type of stuff tthat it wouldn't harm them more than it helped them. I just know that if they're going to make that transition and reassert themselves as a powerhouse they need to do something and that the status quo will simply not do.

[NIDARAM12]

They sell McFarlane at Toys R Us, Target, and Walmart?

I guess no one ever told the stores in southwestern PA about that. :p


I've been to a Walmart, Target, TRU, TRU, Walmart, like 4 EBs and a Gamestop and I haven't even seen the Halo figures in stores.

[Avatar_of_Chaos]

They sell McFarlane at Toys R Us, Target, and Walmart?

I guess no one ever told the stores in southwestern PA about that. :p


I've been to a Walmart, Target, TRU, TRU, Walmart, like 4 EBs and a Gamestop and I haven't even seen the Halo figures in stores.

oh, they were there. the emphasis is on were. not Target. they haven't had a McF product since the second series of 3" NFL. the Halo figs were all sold out by the end of March. Spencers just had a few fresh cases last week at SHV and Monroeville Mall. Music for a Song had a couple up at the Mills.

you've got a PM, btw.