Does Mattel Hate Geeks? Ctd

March 2, 2012 | Poe

Following up on yesterday’s post, a few responses from the comments:

GeneralsJoes:

Stories like this make me very thankful for the always awesome guys (and girls) at Hunter PR who handle Hasbro’s PR stuff at Toy Fair and various other conventions. I have literally NEVER had a bad experience with them, and they treat even us small potato folks with respect and courtesy.

I think many collectors make comparisons between Hasbro and Mattel, and while Hasbro has certainly made its share of missteps, I think it’s demonstrably clear the company values the fans of its brands (particularly the homegrown ones, G.I. Joe and Transformers, but also Star Wars and Marvel). Mattel inevitably suffers by this comparison, which baffles me, since they’ve made it clear they want to establish a TF/GIJ-like media franchise in Masters of the Universe. (more…)

Guest Review > Swiftwind (Masters of the Universe Classics, Mattel)

March 1, 2012 | Doc Thomas

One of the absolute best things about the original She-Ra: Princess of Power cartoon is that Swiftwind is voiced by what appears to be a chainsmoking mall Santa. Instead of choosing someone warm and soothing and appealing like, say, Twilight‘s Robert Pattinson to voice the talking horsie,* it was decided that a better option for selling the new pretty pink pony toy to little girls was the voice of the nearest gravelly-voiced hobo.** This pays off in spades, especially when the damn thing gets some action unlike poor Bow and his mate pops out a kid. If this isn’t reason enough to get over the weirdness of being an adult male collector buying dollies to own the thing, then I don’t know what is.

One of the excellent things MattyCollector has done with these larger boxed toys is brought out variant figures of the central characters so that we can have one He-Man or Skeletor to display with the other characters and one to ride on their oversized magic kitten. I feel Battle Armor He-Man looks superior to regular He-Man on Battle Cat, and the MOTU promotional material tends to agree. (more…)

Does Mattel Hate Geeks?

March 1, 2012 | Poe

Pardon the inflammatory title, but that’s more or less the gist of Paul Nicholasi’s recent post “Geek Is Still a Dirty Word,” detailing his shabby treatment at the hands of Mattel’s public relations people over the last two Toy Fairs. Money quote:

More than anything, it saddens me that things like this kill my love of collecting toys. Why am I meant to feel like I am doing something wrong when I give free publicity to a company? More often then not, we even go so far as to buy the toys we’d like to cover, as it is quicker than trying to squeeze a free sample out of a multi million dollar outfit. Shouldn’t they be very happy we are so enthusiastic about their products? If they are forced by their bosses to squeeze 100 of us into a room all at once to shoot their toys, shouldn’t they be doing their best to assure that THAT experience is as comfortable, polite and smooth as it possibly can be? […] Why is it ok to treat me like this? Because I am with the “collector press” or the “nerd herd” as I’ve heard reps call us. I’m a geek, and my love of what they produce only makes me fodder for ridicule in their minds.

While I’ll admit I tend to be skeptical of geek communities’ tendency to immediately perceive ridicule from anyone outside their cliques, I’m not sure the “geek” thing is the true problem here. It might be part of it, but I think Mattel simply doesn’t give a shit about the smaller press outlets,* who happen to produce almost all of the collector-based toy coverage. It was far more important to give the royal treatment to retailers and, to a lesser extent, the reps of larger press outlets, if any (under this scenario, I chalk up ignoring the MTV rep more to incompetence and unprofessionalism than deliberate neglect).

Regardless of motive, there’s no question Mattel is doing itself a great disservice by treating collectors this way. They’ll never grow the Masters of the Universe brand into a massive multimedia franchise like Transformers or G.I. Joe if they don’t embrace the fandom. Why that lesson can’t sink in, from the executives on down, is baffling.

* Outside of a very small cadre of fan sites with close personal connections to Mattel staffers.