Quote Originally Posted by Tober View Post
Chances are if you don't understand the success of Armada then you are not seeing it from the perspective of a typical male child.
The commercial success of Armada doesn't impress me one bit, though. I don't care how many kids liked the show - because there was almost character development and awful dialogue. Optimus Prime, Megatron & Hot Shot all address their troops as "men", when none of them were commanding men. I was very unimpressed with this and other aspects of the dubbed dialogue.

Quote Originally Posted by Tober View Post
There are HUGE amounts of marketing research that go into understanding/exploiting the child market. McDonalds and Disney are notorious for it. Hasbro most probably does it too.
McDonalds are in a far more competitive market, mind you. They have to compete with Wendys, Burger King, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Subway, Dominos, Arbys and others in the USA. I can't really comment on Disney.

Hasbro's only serious competitor in the US market is Mattel. They've bought all the other competitors (Kenner, Tonka, Galoob, etc). I'd be surprised if Hasbro bother doing endless market research when they've spent the last 15 years buying all the brands in the toy aisle.

Some of Hasbro's recent efforts smack of underestimating kids, too. FABs were aimed at 8 year olds. Most eight year olds would see them as baby toys... when I was five I was playing with G1 Jazz and co. Hasbro now believes that five year olds should be playing with Cyberslammers. If Hasbro did in fact do market research on these lines, I'm worried about the next generation!