Backwards licensing?

Camaro die-cast cars were always top sellers when I managed the Hot Wheels brand at Mattel and the Matchbox brand at Tyco.  As toy companies, we paid royalties to General Motors for the use of the Camaro trademark and were always excited when new models were released.  In an unusual twist, it’s now working the other way as License Magazine reports that “Chevrolet and Mattel have teamed up to bring the Hot Wheels brand to life with the new Camaro Hot Wheels Edition car, the first full-size Hot Wheels car ever to be offered for sale.”

Coincidentally, I appeared with the Matchbox design team on an episode of the PBS series "Reading Rainbow," where I used a Chevrolet Camaro to demonstrate how we used the concept of scale to make mini vehicle replicas of real cars.  Here's an image from the episode.  If you really want to see the episode, you can search YouTube.

The Hot Wheels license on a Camaro is a great idea!  Kudos to GM and Mattel.

Toy Tuesday: Thunderbirds are Go!

This intro to the 1960s TV series Thunderbirds brings back fond memories from my childhood as well as my career in the toy industry.

I stumbled upon this article from io9.com, and it looks like Thunderbirds are coming back.

A fansite for Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson (titled Fanderson) is reporting that on the BBC Radio 5Live show creator Anderson confirmed that he has finalized a deal to make new Thunderbirds series.

All Anderson could say about the project is this, "I don't want to sound conceited, but because I'm going to make it... I'm confident that it will be a smash hit!" Which is understandable, since he has signed a confidentiality agreement with the BBC. BUT - the big question still hasn't been answered. Will there be puppets? And will the world embrace puppet theater once again? The people making the Muppet movie are certainly banking on the world's nostalgia for puppets, but Thunderbirds had a very different look. Our guess is the whole thing will be CG, which would be sad, hopefully it won't go that route.

Thunderbirds follows an International Rescue team who traveled the world in their various boats, submaries, spaceships, and planes righting the wrongs and saving the day. They were like team James Bond for kids.

In the mid 1990s at Tyco Toys, we had great success with Thunderbirds toys under the Matchbox brand in the UK and Canada, though we didn't get much traction in the US. Ten years later, Thunderbirds toys were back in Canada when I was working as Marketing Director at Irwin Toy. With (desperately needed) new entertainment coming, let's hope those working on the new Thunderbirds capitalize on all the cool technology that will bring the brand amazing special effects and lots of media formats.

Could whatever new bells and whistles are brought by today's technology be cooler than the original "Supermarionation"?

To a new generation of kids, "Thunderbirds are Go!"

Toy Tuesday: Which brand is most valuable?

I'm posting this entry from Los Angeles, home of the recent LA Auto Show, where this photo was taken featuring the Hot Wheels logo behind a Chevrolet Camaro. When I was responsible for marketing toy vehicle brands (Hot Wheels at Mattel, Matchbox at Tyco), we relied on the cachet of the Chevrolet Camaro brand to sell our mini vehicles. It looks like the tables have turned, with General Motors now relying on the Hot Wheels toy brand to sell their real cars.

Toy Tuesday: This is What's Up, Doc!

Of all the brands I have encountered in the world of toys and licensing, Looney Tunes was one of the most rewarding, successful, and fun projects to work on. The New York Times reported last week that "Warner Bros. is embarking on a five-alarm rescue effort for Looney Tunes", the franchise often called one of the studio's crown jewels.

When I was a Senior Product Manager at Tyco Toys, we held the master toy license for Looney Tunes, and I was responsible for coordinating all the efforts across the program for all the different brand teams at Tyco who were developing and marketing Looney Tunes toys. It was both interesting and challenging to align boys, girls, games, activities, and mini vehicles in an organization where brand teams were accustomed to working independently.

click to enlarge

The Looney Tunes brand itself was challenging to market as toys. It doesn't have a clear focus toward either boys and girls, and while the characters have always been well known and well loved, they're not necessarily kids' favorites. Competing against other brands with humor components like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Spongebob Squarepants is a big challenge.

Despite these challenges, Tyco was able to achieve some success due to a well integrated retail and marketing program as well as a great working relationship with the people at Warner Bros. Consumer Products, from whom I learned what it is to be a demanding yet fair licensor.

The New York Times article implies that Looney Tunes is in trouble today, with worldwide sales of licensed products at "only" $1 billion. With new TV programming on the way, I sincerely hope that the entertaining and irreverent Looney Tunes brand regains the notoriety it deserves.

Looney Tunes toys by Tyco

Marketing Monday: 20 Best Logos

Developing an effective logo is always challenging. The first step is a good brief to the designer. The brief should identify the target audience and should include communication objectives based on positioning for the brand, product, company, or service that the logo will represent. If positioning isn't well defined, it will be very difficult to create a great logo. Another important factor is choosing the right designer, who will need to consider how the logo will be used (large or small, print, online, broadcast, etc.). All these criteria are key factors to success in logo development.

I recently stumbled upon creativefan.com by Eric Shafer, who featured what he called the 20 best logos of 2009. These examples of logos he selected quickly and emphatically communicate the essence of the companies and products they represent:



The other logos he selected are here.

In a similar vein, I worked on a logo for Tyco Toys' Matchbox Action System, where our goal was to communicate that we had a complete system of connectable track for Matchbox vehicles and playsets:With coherent positioning, a good brief, and a little creativity, it's possible to design a compelling logo that meets your business objectives.