Mattel's Toy Box

Having worked with the professional toy inventing community for a good part of my industry career, I have been mystified and underwhelmed by Mattel putting its product selection process on prime time TV in a show called, The Toy Box. We know that some reality TV is far from reality. Often such shows are highly staged, low voltage productions with marginal entertainment value. Mattel may have thought it was getting a Shark Tank for kids. Rather than a junior Shark Tank, Mattel is capitalizing on the dreams of "toymakers", aka inventors, in a simulated product section contest that is poorly constructed, overly scripted, and almost painful to watch.

In the real world, each toy company searching for the next mega-hit, has its own unique process to gather, judge, and select new opportunities to fit existing lines and align with a company's current  market read. Traditionally, sifting through inventor ideas has been committee affairs with sales, marketing, development and other senior management staff agreeing collectively which new product ideas to embrace. Whereas getting an idea licensed may be nerve wracking for inventors, it is a huge financial gamble when a marketer attempts to launch the next toy fad.

The Toy Box show takes Mattel's bizarre selection process public as broadcast entertainment rather than serious product business. They apparently feel it is time for precocious youngsters rather than experienced adult toy people to chose what should be in future toy boxes. Choosing new ideas has always been something of a "shark tank" with the better opportunity eliminating others based on sound business judgment. Presumably, Mattel feels its well rehearsed youthful Toy Box panel of 7 to 13 year olds represents ultimate consumers. Certainly the kids are not  prepared to consider serious development, costing, sales, and marketing questions common to the real world. It was amusing to me when one panelist following the script asked the anxious toymaker, "What will this idea cost?"

On another media stage, technology has entered the new toy and game selection process. Kickstarter and other crowd funding venues have become sites where new ideas are viewed by millions of eyeballs. Backers give early financial support when a pitch video hits their WOW buttons and they "gotta have the idea". Increasingly, toy marketers (Mattel included} are watching for those Kickstarter successes that can become licensed product and taken to the retail marketplace.

Whatever the selection process, be it adult committees, actors on broadcast TV, or Kickstarter pitches, hopefully toy inventors continue to bring forth and license unique and innovative ideas to industry marketers to fill future toy boxes. There is a saying in the industry, "Product is king".  Toy inventors with their product ideas have long been active and vital kingmakers.

For a more detailed critique of The Toy Box Show by Blurred Reality, go to this link:
https://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/2017/04/toy-box-abc-review
As the show labors on with additional episodes, viewers will likely be left with the unanswered question: What was Mattel thinking by shinning network TV time on this laborious product selection process???

No Reading Required

A common message on a toy package is "some assembly required". Those words may result in a parent needing a toolbox, an ability to read blueprints, and possess basic engineering skills before the "knocked down" parts assemble to be the plaything shown on the package. A notice of "no reading required" on a game package is the industry's signal to adults that young players need not know how to read cards, spinners, dice or boards to enjoy game play.  

Reading in games, or more specifically, reading to comprehend rules may determine if consumers ever get to the intended play. With the short attention span of today's consumers, lowered reading levels, and desire for instant gratification, players want to open a box, set up the pieces, and get into play with minimal reference to rules. (Methinks this attitude is one contributor to the popularity of I-games where user friendly symbols and emoticons get players into the action without wading through a page or two of challenging verbiage.)

A rules intensive game like Monopoly was fortunate to appear on the market back when consumers were more patient and tech-less. It is common product acquisition belief that if Monopoly was introduced as a rules-laden board game today, it would likely not become a classic. Its longevity may  partially be the result of what Mike Meyers, former Senior VP of R&D at Milton Bradley/Hasbro Games, dubbed the Rules Shepherds Theory. His contention was that one literate and patient person (the shepherd) reads the rules and then explains how to play to two or three other players. These players in turn pass known rules on to other new players, and familiarity grows exponentially through an oral history. Good shepherds, often parents or grandparents, bring the non-reading players into the game with some familiarity with the basic rules without reading all details of play.

Game inventors Tim Moodie and Richard Levy tried their own unique idea to make rules user friendly in a VCR game marketed by Mattel in 1992 called Wayne's World. Since the game already had the electronic medium, their thinking was to complement printed rules with a riveting audio-visual explanation of the rules right on the VCR with the box of components nearby. Their efforts to make the rules MRR (minimal reading required) may have touched on other comprehension issues that could be called SHR as in "some hearing required". Unfortunately, the short appearance of Wayne's World game on the market made it impossible to determine if consumers would more strongly embrace hearing rules rather than reading them. Check out this You Tube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=parXcDqvixQ to see an entertaining effort of one of the first audio-visual efforts to market a game with reduced rules reading.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=parXcDqvixQ