The Soapbox IV: Top 10 Characters of All Time

[Tober]

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.

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.

Male children are stimulated by bright colors, fast movement, loud noises, catchy music and violence. Transformers offers them that and then represents it in the material form of toys. In western cultures many families with children have both parents working creating greater income to spend on their kids who are being raised by brightly colored talking characters on their televisions.

EDIT:

My answer is that children and collectors have different desires, expectations, pleasure centers, etc.

Yeah, that's the one.

Must hit 'reply' faster...

[kup]

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.

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.

Male children are stimulated by bright colors, fast movement, loud noises, catchy music and violence. Transformers offers them that and then represents it in the material form of toys. In western cultures many families with children have both parents working creating greater income to spend on their kids who are being raised by brightly colored talking characters on their televisions.

EDIT:



Yeah, that's the one.

Must hit 'reply' faster...

I still don't get it, possibly because I have never been influenced by popular hype even as a kid. When I found myself dedicating or following a franchise or cartoon/toy line it was always because I enjoyed it not because most other do.

So I am pretty sure that if I were 6-10 years old when Armada was released; I would have gone 'meh'; specially if I had previous exposure to older but better designed toys.

[Borgeman]

So I am pretty sure that if I were 6-10 years old when Armada was released; I would have gone 'meh'; specially if I had previous exposure to older but better designed toys.

hindsight is a wonderful thing

George

[kup]

hindsight is a wonderful thing

George

I have done that as a kid when it came to 'popular' things that I didn't like so I am confident I would have.

[dirge]

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.

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!

[Tober]

I didn't like Armada either, Energon even less. Cybertron I did kinda like. There's little correlation between my personal preferences and the success of the various toy lines.

I had to look after my mate's kids a few years ago in the morning when Pokemon was on. Their kids liked it heaps even though 90%+ of the eps were the same thing. On the few occasions where there was actual character development I actually liked it - the kids didn't. Why? Because there were no battles.

Children want different things in their shows than adults. What you want in a show doesn't really matter - Hasbro's obligations lie in appeasing their investors and distributors, not adult collectors. Not in weather this next ridiculous fight scene is going to further advance the plot.

The minds of children and adults are different. Have a read through the various Animated Episode review threads and you will see a trend in what most of us think of Bumblebee. Guess who the most popular Animated character is amongst children...

I would rather see more new Alternator and Masterpiece molds but they don't have any real supporting fiction and are barely profitable to Hasbro. If I had the money I would buy them out and force them to make more, but I'm a few Billion short. Maybe ask Tiby for a loan if you think you can do a better job at turning out a profit than Hasbro are.

[kup]

I would say 'Kids TODAY are different'.

[dirge]

I never said I'm worried about Hasbro turning a profit

Getting back to the original point of this discussion, I don't think Armada's Hot Shot can be classed as one of the top ten Transformers characters of all time, regardless of how successful that series may have been - purely because he was poorly portrayed and the dialogue in Armada was so badly written.

If kids liked Armada purely for the fight scenes, then I think it's fair to say that Hot Shot's character (or lack of it, actually) has anything to do with Armada's success. Instead the dramatic fight scenes are the hallmark of that series, rather than any character.

[kup]

I never said I'm worried about Hasbro turning a profit

Getting back to the original point of this discussion, I don't think Armada's Hot Shot can be classed as one of the top ten Transformers characters of all time, regardless of how successful that series may have been - purely because he was poorly portrayed and the dialogue in Armada was so badly written.

If kids liked Armada purely for the fight scenes, then I think it's fair to say that Hot Shot's character (or lack of it, actually) has anything to do with Armada's success. Instead the dramatic fight scenes are the hallmark of that series, rather than any character.

I disagree, aside from the Unicron Battles part, the fight things in Armada were terrible.

[jaydisc]

the cleverness of the Transformation

because there was almost character development and awful dialogue

Some of Hasbro's recent efforts smack of underestimating kids, too.

I don't think you're understanding my (and seemingly Tober's) point. We probably both agree with all of the above sentiments, but Hasbro's approach is working, despite all of your alleged shortcomings, but rather quite possible due to them.