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View Full Version : Pre Toyfair investor event - the future direction of the Brand



griffin
15th February 2014, 05:04 PM
Most of the good stuff has appeared in separate topic here already, but for the rest of it, the Investor presentation has been held, and we have some snippits of upcoming 2014 info... including Movie stuff, so be careful of spoilers if you go check the info and pics (http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/toy-fair-38/tfw2005-coverage-of-hasbro-new-york-toy-fair-2014-investor-event-179277/).

Potential Movie spoilers ahead....


New movie lines will carry on till 2017.

What? Three years of movie toys. The third movie toys didn't go beyond 12 months. We know that a new TV show is coming out within the next year, and should have a toyline, but I hope this doesn't mean their focus will be on Movie and Cartoon toys... dropping the classic homage toys completely.

One of the first images (http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/attach/7/3/8/6/3/Hasbro-Toy-Fair-2014-Investor-Event-24_1392391049.jpg) shows a breakup of their key demographics...
2-4 years - Rescue Bots (including our first look at wave 3 figurines Optimus and "T-Rex".
4-10 years - Kreo, Construct-Bots, and (mainline)
18+ years - Generations (??? maybe reworking that label to be for things like Masterpiece and high-priced collectibles)


revealed 11 minutes of Transformers: Age Of Extinction footage to the Investors at the event. The media who attended online were not shown the video. The attendees were told not to write or record the footage and warned that security is monitoring with Infrared Goggles.

The fans at the event were part of the Media, so claim to have not seen it. If they did, they look to have been told not to talk about it at all.

(quote) The first movie was about a boy who gets the car to get the girl, this movie (Age Of Extinction) is a truck to needs a friend to save the world. All new Transformers characters and the introduction of Dinobots straight from the Transformers Mythology.(unquote)

I had to quote that differently to hide a possible plot spoiler.


Transformers: Generations will continue on for the collectors.

Good to hear... but we know that the Movie toys will be packaged as Generations, so not necessarily a confirmation that more Classic homages will come (after the ones on the leaked Hasbro database).

Girls love nerf.... What the?
Well, we gotta have some equality with the gun obsession in America... I mean, I get tired of hearing on the news about all the boys taking guns to school. :p :o


Hasbro is really excited about Transformers: Age Of Extinction.

:rolleyes:
Well of course they are... the last three movie years have been the best profit years for Hasbro since they began. I doubt it is excitement about the product, as if it is anything good... it's just excitement in all the sales they will see in the next 5 months (from pre-sales at Toyfair to restocking during the first two weeks of the movie release).


4 big events:

Toy Line will be released this May
Cybertron Monday –Midnight madness event to by the AOE toys.
Movie Release in June
Fall – DVD release.



I think Cybertron Monday relates to the release date of the toys, and being a media/marketing event to attract attention to the Brand, leading up to the Movie's release at the end of June.
(note - Fall is our Spring)


New Transformers Video Games will be release in 2014.

Noting the plural there, but not sure if the Universe game is being counted, or if we will see more than one platform game this year.


Rescue Bots will Season 3 will feature Dinobot inspired robots.


A confirmation of season 3, or a typo?
If it is a third season, it is odd that season 2 was delayed then if it doesn't include the Dino theme (to cash in on its delayed release with the Movie marketing).



HOLY MOLY!!! Transformers: Generations Jetfire and Windblade revealed.

Seen in our other topic here. (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?t=17970)

Now it is official (Jetfire). Both TFW & Seibertron have watermarked the image as if it was exclusively obtained by them, or that they own the image. :rolleyes:


Transformers: Battle Masters

Just briefly mentioned, and a single promo image shown... so no details on what series it relates to, if at all.

DELTAprime
15th February 2014, 05:21 PM
Seibertron (http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/toy-fair-2014-coverage-hasbro-investor-day-presentation/29417/) have clearer non-watermarked images of the stills.

I'm not sure what all the stages of denial are but I think I'm up to acceptance. The slide that says Rescue Bots are Boys 2-4, AOE Boys 4-10 and Generations Boys 18+ has made me accept that there will be nothing but Generations and Takara's MP line for me to buy in the future. I doubt I will even be buying non-collector oriented line figures for my character shelves Prime's, Megatron's, Seeker's, Bee's and Soundwave's.:(

griffin
15th February 2014, 06:12 PM
Seibertron (http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/toy-fair-2014-coverage-hasbro-investor-day-presentation/29417/) have clearer non-watermarked images of the stills.

Excellent, as I needed some of the toy images... and an odd role reversal of watermarking the official toy images both sites got from the USA Today new article.

They have an extra image in there too for the age/demographic breakdown.
(all are "boys" - which isn't meant to be prejudicial against girls... it is just noting the majority demographic for the *investors* to recognise where their money is going)
2-4 - Recruit (Rescue Bots)
4-10 - Play & Battle (Mainline-Movie)
18+ - Collect (Generations)

It is odd that there are now two mentions of Generations as a separate label from the Movie line, but the leaked Hasbro database noted the label being used for the main (non-gimmick) movie toys. :confused:
Hopefully it just means that they were just entered into the Database like that for sorting reasons, but will not be the actual label of the packaging.


No mention of BotShots on either site, so maybe that line was axed as well... which might mean, no Soundwave.

Sinnertwin
15th February 2014, 07:51 PM
Three movie years of one-step, bash 'em action! :rolleyes::p

I saw the Nerf Rebelle's at Big W, Penrith, before Christmas. Haven't seen them elsewhere. Then again, Nerf isn't my bag of chips

Mythirax
15th February 2014, 09:02 PM
Three movie years of one-step, bash 'em action! :rolleyes::p

Providing after the first wave the plastic doesn't feel like dried up paper that was once wet. I can deal with that. So long as they're not these 1-step bits of crud.

As for the nerf stuff, my sister loves it haha.

Sinnertwin
15th February 2014, 09:30 PM
As for the nerf stuff, my sister loves it haha.


Sister? Sure...
:p

Mythirax
15th February 2014, 09:44 PM
Sister? Sure...
:p

Well to be fair we both love it. At the least she's still a kid, where as I'm not :( haha

Hursticon
15th February 2014, 09:58 PM
No mention of BotShots on either site, so maybe that line was axed as well... which might mean, no Soundwave.

http://i1032.photobucket.com/albums/a409/Darkone666au/Webpics/Maggie-s-about-to-cry----maggie-sim.gif

dirge
15th February 2014, 09:59 PM
Aww... I'll give you a big cuddle tomorrow, Hursticon...

Hursticon
15th February 2014, 10:00 PM
Aww... I'll give you a big cuddle tomorrow, Hursticon...

*Sniffles, wipes snot from nose* - Okay... :o

Bidoofdude
15th February 2014, 10:35 PM
*Sniffles, wipes snot from nose* - Okay... :o

A moment of silence for Bot Shots Soundwave, in the name of Hursti. :( Sorry dude.

Hursticon
16th February 2014, 12:54 AM
A moment of silence for Bot Shots Soundwave, in the name of Hursti. :( Sorry dude.

Hehe, it's all good dude but it does suck quite a bit as he was the ONLY Botshot figure I was looking forward to :o; it's absolutely staggering that Hasbro would forget about the character and how blatantly obvious a fit he'd be for the line :rolleyes:, only to leave it SO late in the development/life of the line that he'd be nixed after having prototype photos shown off at last year. :mad:

Who knows, the line is doing rather well in Japan I hear so he may just find his way to me via Takara. ;):cool:

griffin
3rd March 2014, 04:57 PM
Having another look over the Investor Event, I saw this slide (http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/attach/7/3/8/6/3/Hasbro-Toy-Fair-2014-Investor-Event-35_1392391049.jpg) that was SUPPOSED to be promoting the increase of employee numbers in new foreign Markets (which would be a good thing for the company)... but instead, what stands out more in that graph is how many jobs they've slashed in just 5 years (about 1000, or about 15%), both in America and in existing foreign Markets (like ours).
Who ever did up that slide should have just shown the figures of just the new foreign Markets, as they ended up making Hasbro look really bad for killing off their employee numbers, and not one for investing in *Human* resources.

Lint
3rd March 2014, 08:46 PM
Having another look over the Investor Event, I saw this slide (http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/attach/7/3/8/6/3/Hasbro-Toy-Fair-2014-Investor-Event-35_1392391049.jpg) that was SUPPOSED to be promoting the increase of employee numbers in new foreign Markets (which would be a good thing for the company)... but instead, what stands out more in that graph is how many jobs they've slashed in just 5 years (about 1000, or about 15%), both in America and in existing foreign Markets (like ours).
Who ever did up that slide should have just shown the figures of just the new foreign Markets, as they ended up making Hasbro look really bad for killing off their employee numbers, and not one for investing in *Human* resources.

To be fair a GFC did happen, and most of the lost jobs look to be taken straight out of the US.

griffin
3rd March 2014, 09:49 PM
But Hasbro didn't cut back until 2012, when we lost a lot of the Transformers people and other departments (according to BotCon and fansite reports in the last year).

And even if the GFC, or some other factor made it necessary, my main point was that they should have hidden it from that particular slide, because the smaller blue bar was more noticeable than the bigger orange bar.

DELTAprime
3rd March 2014, 10:20 PM
And even if the GFC, or some other factor made it necessary, my main point was that they should have hidden it from that particular slide, because the smaller blue bar was more noticeable than the bigger orange bar.

Yeah, doesn't look too good.:p

As for why they cut the jobs in the first place. I felt like they kept their head in the sand when the market crashed, and only reacted years later with job cuts and cost cutting.