US collectors get more coupons from Hasbro... again
Hasbro America are offering some coupons for their major brands, including Transformers... which fans can take to any store in America it seems, until the end of February. For Transformers, there is a coupon for DotM Deluxes (bringing them down to about $9), plus Kre-O & Rescue Bot coupons.
Imagine having $9 Deluxe toys here... or even cheaper, considering the current exchange rate.
Or, going by our inflated Transformers prices, that'd be about $18 here.
See, this is why Transformers fails to gain significant "cultural" popularity and momentum in this country, because we don't see our Hasbro supporting the Brand themselves like the American Hasbro keep doing on such a regular basis.
Instead, it seems to be up to the retailers here to do the promoting or discounting - which for them is just to make sales or clear out stock. Because there is no interest from the retailers to "invest" into the brands to support them, because it's not their brands... so if those products/brands fail to sell, the retailers just shrug it off and buy a different brand next year.
And if we don't have a cartoon on free-to-air TV, or a Movie in theatres, to promote the brand, sales slump, because nothing outside of a retailer having a sale, will motivate consumers here to buy Transformers (or any toy brand).
I think if distributors in this country wanted to see sustained success in their Brands here, that don't have TV or Movies behind them, they need to get behind their Brands more, and proactively to the consumers, not just the retailers. Retailers just don't care if a brand succeeds or fails in the long run, as there'll be more toy options available for them to stock next year.
We here (this site) helped make Transformers the most active online toy franchise in this country BEFORE Hasbro had Michael Bay bring it to the mainstream... and what do we get in return - no replies to my future product queries. They are biting the hand that feeds them, so you can hopefully understand why I'm a bit frustrated.
And what about the lack of licensed merchandise in Australia for Transformers. Anyone with business experience knows that you need to have your product "advertised" as much as possible... something that obviously isn't happening with their expensive, inflexible licensing fees. The toys are the money earner, not the licensing fees, so why even charge a fee on authorised, quality merchandise to begin with? The more non-toy merchandise is out there, the more "in their face" advertising occurs, drawing customers to the real money earning toyline.
Transformers is supposed to be in its most successful state since 1984-85, but where is all the Transformers-Branded stuff in the Department stores?
Even with the Movie last year, I am still seeing merchandise with a range of several popular kids Brands that excludes Transformers.
Just look at all the Back-To-School stuff in stores.
We all wanted Transformers school stuff when we were in the younger grades at school... where is it right now?
What is Hasbro thinking?
Every School-related item should have been available, branded with a Transformers image or name, as official merchandise... so that it promotes the brand to other kids, and subliminally advertises the toyline to the owner of the merchandise and all around him/her.
Are they stubborn with their licensing fees, or just not realise basic Business principles when it comes to Brand advertising? Anyone can see that if you promote a toy Brand in as many non-Toy departments of the stores as possible, it'll get people to want to take the trek into a toy store/section. The more awareness they generate outside of the toystore, the more interest and sales of Toys it'll generate.
Is that NOT obvious?
Am I missing something, or is Hasbro licensing policy more important than their Toys?
The people at Hasbro should be constantly chasing companies and begging for them to be producing merchandise, because there's no such thing as too much advertising. More so during times when other marketing elements are not present (TV & Movies).
Everywhere we look, we should be seeing Transformers merchandise, instead of just Ben10, Dora, Wiggles and Barbie. Even during the Movie "Seasons", there was no saturation of Transformer Merchandise.
It's almost like the many years of prohibitive licensing since Gen1, scared off or killed off the interest. All that time during the 5-10 years before the first Movie, it was almost impossible to find non-toy Transformers Merchandise.
Hasbro should take a look at Coke or McDonalds. Everyone already knows about them, but those companies still spend millions to make sure it's on everyone's mind as often as possible, and in our faces everywhere, so that we can't escape it.
If Hasbro ever wants to be the number 1 Toy company, they need to understand the concept of mass-marketing of their Brands, chasing up merchandise items... double so during times when there are no TV shows or Movies to move the toys. If a kid or parent is likely to only spend less than 1% of their life in or near a Toy store/section - what is being done to get them in there if there are no TV shows, no Movies, and no Merchandise or promotions from Hasbro?
Even if the exchange-rate savings were passed on to halve the price of our toys here, the Retailer sales would still end up being the only thing getting people into the stores to buy toys.
If you lose the TV & Movie marketing elements, it's smart business to offset it by increasing marketing of other known productive elements - promotions and non-toy merchandise.
Maybe it's just the Toyfair environment we have in this country, in which the toy companies just hand off responsibility of their own Brands, to the retailers, by chasing after them and begging them to buy their products.
Or maybe the point of Merchandise seems to be lost on Hasbro, as they don't seem to see it as a way of preventing parents and kids from "escaping" a toyline, no matter where they are... because it will be subliminally promoting the Brand every time they see it. An expensive, set fee is just so prohibitive to getting their Toy Brand out of the Toy store/section and into the faces of the intended demographic and their parents. Not to mention being very restrictive (according to some past and present license holders).
Since everything needs to be approved by Hasbro anyway, to meet minimum standards, (as it should) it just makes no sense to stunt their own toyline's success by limiting the potential of this form of free advertising?
I mean, if Hasbro aren't going to be doing much promoting of the Brand themselves here (leaving it up to retailers who don't care about Brands), why put a stop to companies who would want to do the job for them?
Getting a Brand or its image out to the consumers as cheaply and as thoroughly as possible... is basic business. But here it seems that without a Movie or Free-to-air TV show, toy Brands like Transformers are left to shrivel up and be neglected (by distributors, then retailers and finally the consumer).
Just look at what happened to the Star Wars Action Figures in the last year - the Movies and TV show had the toys filling whole aisles in stores. Now, there is nothing picking up the slack of what has proven to be a popular toyline, so it barely takes up a column of pegs in most stores.
Don't think that it can't happen to Transformers too. Because that's what it was like during times of no TV or Movies... and will again if we don't see more direct marketing to Consumers and less prohibitive merchandise licensing, to get the Brand out there... everywhere.
(I was only going to rant this on my blog, but Hasbro are more likely to see it here)
