Why The Toy Market is Collapsing...

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: that's another tough question you guys are making reproductions of vehicles that are 30 years old yeah you just did the sky striker how many times have you done that i've been out of the toy business for a while now could be part of the reason why the toy industry is where it is right now because they don't have people who understand toys i get complaints from people like why did you do all these neon joes and with these oversized weapons well we did them because they shot things coca-cola what do they know about toys give me a toy a figure that does something that's one just one simple example of how to make make a toy great again kirk was the former vice president of boys toys [00:00:47] Speaker 2: marketing at hasbro and the mastermind behind the relaunch of gi joe a real american hero in the 1980s kirk played a major role in turning gi joe into a pop culture phenomenon leading up to this like the [00:00:59] Speaker 3: one thing i wanted to ask you was where do you see the toy industry say in five ten years it's like you've been in the toy industry forever you're still teaching courses like you're seeing it now you know like how how deep are you keeping track of like what's happening in the story industry and like where [00:01:19] Speaker 1: do you see it kind of evolving from here that's a really good question um and you start off with a tough one thanks the toy business is going to you know has constantly evolved obviously and it's going to continue to evolve um where do i see it in five years probably where it is right now i mean kids are always going to want toys yeah um the the growth i think we're going to see the growth however is where we this whole new opportunity called what kid dolt you're a big part of that your company's a big part of that i think we're going to see more of that um there's still such a three-dimensional um aspect to a toy that i think still intrigues a kid yeah and people who keep claiming that you know kids don't like you know play with toys anymore give them the right toy and they'll play with sure kind of a comment from toy industry professionals that kids don't play with toys anymore um i say baloney give them the give them a toy that can intrigue them and they will keep playing with toys and that goes for all toys that just because a kid is grows crow grows out of preschool toys because that's where i think the market is right now obviously doesn't mean that you can't keep them into toys until they're 12. yeah you just kind of give them something that's going to intrigue them and uh again that whole opportunity to grow the business with adults is fascinating to me yeah so yeah so [00:02:56] Speaker 3: this was the this is the war room i wanted this to be action force centric i wanted everything about the brand to be in here okay so it's like it's cool because then i get to see the the the depth of of the line yeah it's like sometimes it takes me by surprise because i'm like well series one started here this was the first ever one and then we went down to series two and then a couple of other supplemental series in series three and then series four and then series five and then over there we got [00:03:24] Speaker 4: new stuff and then it's like did the vehicle it's like holy crap like a vehicle that's what a lot of the other companies are missing is that the whole idea of doing a vehicle well i think it's the it's [00:03:35] Speaker 3: the risk factor it's like i was the most nervous i've ever been doing that yeah and it was such a big undertaking you're talking you know seven hundred thousand dollars yeah in tooling yeah the problem i have [00:03:47] Speaker 1: with with what hasbro has done in the past with their vehicles is and i've said this to them at conventions is you guys are making reproductions of vehicles that are 30 years old yeah you just did the sky striker how many times have you done that and that's a plane that's not even in the inventory anymore yeah of the military yeah right but oh because people remember the sky striker from years ago we've got to give them a new sky striker and then you did it single seat not two seater yeah i mean give me a new vehicle give me a new jet you know well that's right so that's based off a [00:04:22] Speaker 3: real world vehicle right i know yeah rezvani so it's like i saw it in a movie i said oh i partnered with them they love the idea yeah so it's like yeah cool give me something fresh there's a new [00:04:31] Speaker 1: company that i i've i bought a few products from uh called i think it's called funhole and they make construction toys okay i've already bought three okay and they just came out with the new one chuck wagon okay it's a world of urban scenes so they've got a record store okay classic downtown record store they've got uh steampunk as a category phenomenal kind of looking stuff with the little mini little minifigures little minifigures um they haven't done military yet but i gotta believe that's around the corner um and it's just you know so where's the industry going i think they're gonna you if you give a young young kids something really truly playful they'll play i see it maybe going more [00:05:23] Speaker 3: towards the adult collector now i kind of joke with the adult collectors i say you guys have to remember there's more than just adult collectibles like go down the other aisles at target see what's what's out there because this stuff yes an adult collector has it and it's a it's a nostalgia thing that is coveted but they weren't making it for adult collectors they were making the kids yeah and you know that's that's what we have to kind of remember like it all started with kids the kiddo thing i mean obviously my business kind of runs on that yeah i would love for it to get to lunch boxes and backpacks like young kids maybe but what scares me about the kiddo adult collector thing is i look at it as like it's like a wave and you're surfing eventually the wave is going to crash wave can't go forever so it's like guys like me grew up on the stuff you produce then it's like so we were the kids 80s 90s that were buying the toys and then like we just kept it going yeah but when i'm 50 or 55 am i still going to be buying collector toy products and if i'm not is there a generation behind me that is the next wave like is there going to be another like the 20 year olds now are they going to get into adult collecting you know and that's that's always been my biggest question is my generation guys in their you know mid 30s to late 40s that section yeah when they get too old what is going to happen is it is it a trend and i know toy the toy industry is full of trends but yeah where is will that keep going so i think to me it's like i'm going to ride the wave as long as possible but you know kids are always going to be needed i mean you know like you said kids will always play with a toy this morning you know my son my daughter they're up i'm trying to get their lunches ready for school and my son has a switch we got youtube he wasn't playing any but out of nowhere he just started playing with beyblades this morning and my daughter started playing and they were battling for two hours this morning okay and i'm like that's awesome you know and it's like yeah they play with toys and you know he he's got a ton of my action force stuff but he is he likes action figures they're they're always going to play with stuff um you know so yeah they're the digital aspect the youtubes the switches is always going to get in but there's always going to be breaks from that so they're not going to be on 24 hours a day they're always going to need toys so you know i'm glad to hear you say that not much will change but yes seeing the the adult collector like when i was at hasbro it was rising yeah and it just i thought [00:08:06] Speaker 1: it just happens i think to be the growth area right now but i don't think that i mean the future has got to be how do you get kids back into toys exactly um personal two personal experiences in the last month so my son just got married and he has a little nephew little nephew goes to school and he goes to a uh a religious school a jewish religious school and he gets to play the parties five i think he gets to play the part of moses in this little school play so years ago i created with don levine i we both created a a series of toys called all my almighty heroes sold in religious specialty shops and gift shops complete with a book that i wrote and it was moses noah david uh you know had ron rudak designed the characters for us all designed for preschoolers so on easter a week before easter we go up to visit my son and his wife and the family comes over and little caleb comes over and i give him as a gift in a package moses with the little book the story of moses that kid hasn't stopped playing with that figure okay my daughter-in-law sends me a picture of him eating breakfast with moses next to him at the kitchen table okay five years old the toy does nothing it's a little simple yes well five point articulated figure big chunky feet he takes it with them everywhere okay why did that attract his because he looks i guess to at himself as hey that's me sure right sure easter sunday my great nephews and nieces come over for easter with the families and my wife always puts together a little easter basket for the kids so i said she goes where can we get some get them a bunch of stuff i said go to dollar tree you know they're little they're young they're four and five years old go to dollar tree get them a bunch of stuff so for the boys who get a wiffle bat and ball and we included in there a little action figure i don't even know what dollar tree calls it but they're military figures final faction yeah yeah so we give it we give it we give that to uh my nephews great nephews the youngest avi opens the easter basket and sees the figure now this is a kid who's hooked on spidey tv spider-man now okay uh rescue heroes so all the popular characters yeah he takes out the figure and he looks at it and he goes his eyes brighton and he comes running over to me and he goes i love it this is my favorite toy doesn't even know what it is okay he goes to me what's his name i said sergeant striker that's his name i just i don't know why yeah just gave it and gave the thing a name that kid played with that all day long come came with you know he's articulated came with three different like a backpack and two different weapons he lost one of the weapons he's going crazy looking for it before they're going home he finally finds it okay so i said to myself here's a toy a buck and a quarter toy they create dollar tree knocked off the whole gi joe concept okay good guy bad guy backstory you could get a comic book for years a couple of years ago i bought the comic book that you bought at dollar tree yeah okay and they built their own little intellectual property and here's a kid who got so excited by it because he's never seen a toy soldier for a little kid opportunity lost right there's so there's an opportunity for the big guys to reconsider but no nobody plays with war toys [00:12:16] Speaker 3: anymore and that's the you know that was the thing it's like you know when i was on the joe brand it's like you know we were marketing towards the adult collector it's like where's the kid even but the [00:12:27] Speaker 1: classified line the height is like you don't get the kid yeah you're not going to have a an adult line exactly it's very much longer exactly so that's the the the the fly in the ointment that nobody wants to talk about right the elephant in the room you got to figure out a way to get a kid to want to buy your [00:12:44] Speaker 3: choice yeah the cool thing is is like with you know with my line i meet you know guys my age are a little older with kids and they're like i got my son into action force like the way i had with gi joe so this is like a shared experience which is good but you still need to get the kids to see this stuff exactly and you know i wonder like and i'm sure you probably touched on this you know in your marketing classes which i want to get into in a second but you know i see my son my daughter they watch they don't watch a lot of like shows they watch youtube i'm like why do you guys want to see other kids playing with stuff like we just like it i know that's a phenomenon i can't figure out yeah but i pay for the premium youtube so there's no commercials so i'm like they're not getting the commercials seeing the new stuff like we got as kids you know yeah um but like kind of segwaying into your you know the because you teach your marketing courses how much did those marketing courses evolve over time just based on trends and the way everything like i'm sure there's a lot of basic stuff that always stayed the same but then did you feel like a lot changed over time yeah i mean [00:13:55] Speaker 1: i've been teaching marketing now for 15 years and what i teach is uh introduction to marketing which is you know um principles of marketing that's what i teach and it's a required course of all business students at providence college so i don't just get marketing students in fact most of my time i've taught students in the students in my class are accounting finance and management majors with one or two marketing majors so my focus is on teaching them is on uh how marketing relates to the rest of a company to the entire business okay the the adversarial relationship you have with in my case it was always with finance okay because they want to hold you back right they want to they want to keep control of the dollars that you as a marketing person want to spend of course which is natural right i mean that's what marketing is how do you get people to buy your product you gotta let the world know you make a product yeah so that's advertising that's promotion that's over you asked how things have evolved well over the over time i've had to now incorporate social media into my marketing classes i have to incorporate the the influencers into my marketing courses okay so what started out as 15 years ago as old school marketing the kind of marketing i learned pretty quickly evolved into hey you better start adding digital marketing social media marketing the the power of social media uh the influence of influencers yeah i mean that's that's how everything has evolved over time over the last few years [00:15:38] Speaker 3: yeah that you know i've tried you know i i hired a firm to help google ads and this and that i felt like they weren't doing nearly as much as what i was doing on social media it's like yeah the line i built the line but it's all it's very organic social media because all you got to do is like you put a post out there all of a sudden i i don't look at like you know how many likes my post is getting i look at how many times it's shared because they're the ones sharing it to another that's right and then they're sharing it and then all of a sudden it's like oh i just have to throw this little bit out there and the flower just bloom yeah it's like like black-eyed susans they just yeah multiply and it goes and that's like you know when i tried to tell that firm because i stopped working for the firm like oh well you know what what are you going to do i'm like well look my social media does more than what you i was paying you guys to do the social media just reaches so many people but now there's so many platforms it's like all right i was doing facebook and instagram right now it's like i got the youtube channel yeah and now someone's like well you got to get on tick tock because tick tock has the 20 somethings because now it's like they say that facebook is for the older generation and then instagram was like for the 30 somethings and now tick tocks is for the 20 somethings i'm like okay well if i start getting tick tock i got to learn that and then now i got four social media platforms well then what's the [00:17:00] Speaker 1: next thing that's the thing you gotta look what's coming after tick tock yeah right because it's not going to be tick tock forever yeah exactly okay so what's coming out and it may not be tick tock legally exactly you don't even know about that yeah so yeah you gotta you gotta constantly stay on top [00:17:14] Speaker 3: and it's like are the facebook and instagrams as they're getting phased out are they going to try to like hold on and try to revamp themselves like i don't know if you remember there was um matt what was the the pre facebook thing called my space you had my space and it's like my space and facebook were literally the same thing but facebook had inclusivity because it was college kid yeah and at the time i was going to art school not college so i couldn't be on facebook and i was like i don't want to be on facebook and i was very against it and then i was on myspace and then myspace went away and then facebook got popular and it's like okay but is facebook going to revamp itself is instagram going to revamp itself or it's just going to go away and then something new is going to take its place yeah you know what i find crazy is youtube like it's only been youtube the video site now tick tock from what i understand is videos but it's still not youtube is still youtube yeah and you know and even youtube has evolved like my my kids watch shows and they watch these kids playing with stuff but then all of a sudden those kids are like oh we've been sponsored by zuru for thanks for the product so it's like oh they got smart it's like i just saw you know mr beast he's a youtuber he's got like hundreds of millions of followers and he blows stuff up and he does crazy games and gives away he gives away tons of money okay but all of a sudden like i think moose or someone started working with him like it took i finally like i can't believe how long it took them to work with him it's like these are the you got to latch on to the the social media people with the you know the hundreds of millions of views right that's that's just advertising to a huge platform of just you know kids and you know young adults yep it's kind of crazy but you know i'm like well that's that's the new world we're living in right it is you know and it's like is that going to keep going or is [00:19:18] Speaker 1: i don't know i was telling mark i have a daughter-in-law who built a business uh started out as a hobby of designing uh charm necklaces that she was making and selling one at a time and in a couple of months saw her business skyrocket because of an influencer who happened to get her necklace and wore it and bragged about it on her influencer channel or whatever on tick tock yeah and my daughter-in-law's business has exploded all because of that one influencer that was squishmallows yeah i think [00:19:54] Speaker 3: it might have been like kim kardashian yeah they did you know the company i think it was kelly toys was doing the squishmallows before jazz wears got them but i think kim kardashian like got a squishmallow had a post on it with her daughter and also where can i get this kim kardashian has it and it's like then it caused kelly toy to sell the the jazz wars and now you know i think you know squishmallows is just a billion dollar brand it's like because like this this celebrity posted and it's like that celebrity didn't get any money they just posted organically it just happened um you know matt was telling me a story about someone with a girl wearing shorts and all of a sudden these shorts she was did this tick tock video and it blew up and you know my wife she works out like religiously does all the crossfit stuff and she found this woman that does these shorts and sports bras and i'm like you buy so much from her you need to start your own like channel and start plugging her stuff and then maybe you get this stuff for free yeah exactly um but yeah it's it's all you gotta do is you gotta get that that one influencer what is this what is this cool thing hey guys look at this thing i found and then it just hey i want that um it's a it's really interesting and i you know i see you know the toy industry has a ton of influencers and stuff but we're just not there yet as like a kim kardashian right some of those we need to like like i would love to get you know action force in the hands of like a not kim [00:21:21] Speaker 1: kardashian but to like that level yeah you gotta figure that out yeah that's what you gotta figure out you know and your thing is influencers you know we think of that as a something new but influencers have been around a long time um you know i i remember the story of um uh the teddy bear and the teddy bear believe it or not got created because of a story about teddy roosevelt teddy roosevelt was out on a hunting trip as a young man in montana maybe and he the quote saved the life of a bear cub okay okay so a toy company in new york city hears that story or reads that story and they make a plush toy there were no teddy bears before the teddy bear they got named the teddy bear because of teddy roosevelt so they make this plush teddy bear cub send it to teddy roosevelt who was president at the time and a story runs on teddy roosevelt holding up this little teddy bear and it's called a teddy bear boom every kid has every kid has one [00:22:33] Speaker 3: now since 1902 1903 that's a crazy story right yeah yeah i i had a thought and i lost it because i was like that's such a fascinating story i'm filled with knowledge like this yeah like i didn't you know because yeah and that's like we were talking earlier about like the knowledge that that the younger generation doesn't find out and it's like that's like that's awesome i love learning new things like that's cool but now it's like well how do i use that how can you how can you do something with that um but i mean it's i think accessibility is is the big part whereas there's so much out there i think the accessibility of people is a lot harder like i i know when you know i was trying to start pitching action forces like an animated series just trying to get to the people like yeah you have facebook and instagram and linkedin and you you pounding the pavement it reminded me it was like when i was trying to break in the comics industry you're like pushing and pushing and pushing it's like but the accessibility it's like these people are getting flooded with tons of messages on a daily basis it's like how did how does yours find its way to the top yeah and that's to me is what i find to be the hardest part as with marketing is getting to the people getting to that walmart buyer get you know and i you know i i look at linkedin and how that site evolved like everything else like linkedin was supposed to be just for for work and careers and getting to that it wasn't social media right it was very you know work-based but now even that it's like all right well i was like oh i sent this person a message and they didn't read it it's been three months or they read it and they never got back to me it's like how do i get to these people and you see them they're there you know the walmart the target buyer are there i know their names and stuff but it's like i need to get to you right that's definitely the hardest part now and it's like i know you could still go to toy fair and stuff and even that it's like well you set up a meeting did you do this no i don't have a meeting but can i just have five minutes with this person so you know i've sent boxes of product out you know just hoping [00:24:48] Speaker 1: someone at this company will get it and see it and like it you know so but well exactly i mean i'll give you another influencer okay historical influencer all right happens to be another president okay and you say to yourself how could you do something similar i don't know okay um but you're familiar with jelly belly jelly beans oh yeah you know how jelly belly jelly beans became so [00:25:17] Speaker 3: popular ronald reagan oh that's right he was a big candy guy wasn't he yeah ronald reagan when [00:25:24] Speaker 1: he was governor of california a new company started in california called jelly bellies they gave him a sample to sit on his desk of a jelly belly candy jar filled with jelly bellies they just sent it to him okay saying we're a new company in california but we hope you like these he fell in love with jelly bellies when he became president he had a jelly belly jelly belly jelly jar jelly belly jar on his desk on the resolute desk he had as gifts for every person who visited the white house a bag presidential seal jelly belly jelly beans that's cool okay influencer before the influencers yeah got involved so you just got to pick the right person okay you got to figure out okay well is there an affinity with this person who for my kind of product which let's face it is controversial bobby of course right of course you know you're not making teddy bears i'm not making and and and yeah but if you find that right person and you get them to then post something hey look what i got this is great my kids love it blah blah blah who knows where it can go [00:26:44] Speaker 3: yeah yeah yeah well look at what is it the stanley cups yeah look at those have been around forever [00:26:49] Speaker 1: and all of a sudden i'm like why did they so they made them in a different color they made them in [00:26:53] Speaker 3: fashion colors and all of a sudden it became like the hottest thing yeah but again it's it's trendy stuff you know look at rhode island brand alex and ani you know look at how trendy those were and now it's like no one wears alex and ani anymore it's like that's the problem with trends is yeah you get it [00:27:08] Speaker 1: well you get it hot you got to keep it hot that's the nature of the toy business right it's it was often talked and told me to me that was a fad business and i always thought of a fad as like a 30-day wonder you know yeah um but no it's it's much longer than that but it's still it's a fad there's and you got to figure out where is the marketplace moving next yeah yeah yeah that we did a [00:27:34] Speaker 3: video uh one of the last times he was up that we put out i called it what's old is new and seeing like yeah that you know when i was at hasbro it's like what's it what's the new innovation what's the new innovation and then you give them all this new innovation and they're like uh but the cost is too high let's go back to what we know let's go titan hero and this and that you're just like okay well why did i give you all this cool innovation and then i see it even now like uh we did a video that was it mattel did the batman forever figures yeah mattel put out these batman forever figures the val kilmer movie from 1996 or okay yeah mattel had done a line and or kenner did a line kenner did the original line well obviously kenner mattel like kenner was acquired by casbro so the molds don't exist mattel ends up celebrating i think what the 30th anniversary of of it and they put out the same figures that mattel did that kenner did or kenner did sorry yeah but they retooled them because i i bought some of the original ones and then i bought the tooling doesn't exist doesn't exist but it's like instead of like tooling new innovative stuff they tooled a 30-year-old product just to put it out for a 30th anniversary of a line they didn't even do and i was like i was so baffled i'm like because i know how much tooling dollars yeah like you tooled this new and it i just like i did the video because i was like why like why would they do this like it's one of the lesser batman movies but it was just interesting and even hasworth they're going back to they did a brand that that i worked on and then it failed and it went away and now they're doing another iteration they're calling it something different but it's something new you know the bend and flex it's like they were doing bendy figures forever now all of a sudden what's what is it well how can we bring that back and when i was there you were familiar with the titan hero that's one because those the profit margin was so good on them and it started out as a weird exercise of how can we do figures for latin america because their pdq trades you couldn't have something to open box because the stores are dirty and dusty and somewhere outdoors and this and that so they created titan hero but all of a sudden us was like hey we want that too i was like oh we could sell millions of units and all of a sudden titan hero took off but then prices increased so your dollar whatever figure that you sell for 10 is no longer a dollar something start to creep up so every year it was like what's the new version of titan hero and they tried like going smaller or going bigger doing this or doing that and now it's like you know i've been at a hasbro six or seven years now and i look and they're still doing titan hero so it's like they're still going back to the well and it's like there's always going to be things that work or things you go back to look you know they start doing o-ring figures again yeah which is nuts you know that's for the adult collector it's nostalgia based but seeing that hey that trend worked for this era could it work for this new generation and that's it's always interesting to see that um you know because when i go to target i don't just look at the collector product i go to every toy aisle sure i do the same yeah i want to see what's going on you know the interesting thing that i saw explode over the years is the blind box you know first they had the the mini the the the shopkins and now it's like you go down then it was mini brands and now it's like that even exploded now they do the the mini brands that it's a create thing it comes with resin so you can like create like this this thing and i'm just like this is wild like you know i love the the idea of blind box something that originated in asia yeah you know and when i i went over to china last year for the first time and you go into these stores and they have like the 50 cent egg machines yeah and it's like that market is huge over there but now it's like where toys r us used to have the whole section of lego target has the whole aisle of blind bag i'm like that's wild yeah it used to be little little end caps now it's a whole aisle because there's other company every company is doing one it's not just like zoo room or you know moose or anything like that and you know the the creative play which is like i said they went from doing the blind bag of collectibles to doing the blind bag like it's like mini brand did cakes and how do you make the resin cake with the icing and stuff dripping off of it and it's like wow okay so it's not just oh what's the rare one i got it's let me create this and you know you know moose toys yeah one of my favorite toy companies i love their their offering of getting the thing out of the mystery box and the goo or the sand you know they use a lot of kinetic sand and goo and stuff and i'm like my son loves those things and i love playing with it it's like different levels of you break this open you do this and you do this and you do this and then you do this and then it reveals what it is it's like all right well that's fun but it's also a one-time use it's like you do it but then how do you keep them [00:32:36] Speaker 1: engaged to what you got out of it the surprise is going to be something worth it yeah yeah yeah [00:32:43] Speaker 3: and i think they're some of these companies are losing that battle it's like we got them for 10 minutes but now my son has a whole bin full of uh the treasure x guys he doesn't play with them because he got them out of the at the sand yeah what do you do what do you do what do you do yeah um i have a an idea i'm working on i'll show you once we're off camera a blind box thing that i'm working on i want to get your take on it okay but sure i think there's something there but i think there's something there not just for kids i think adults as well um you know because i see my wife she gets into some of this stuff too i'm like look finally you're coming to collect they sent me that as a sample i said oh so that's why i love the design house they work with yeah they're doing stuff on their own and coming to me and saying hey what do you think of this think of this so they're truly partners do you think there's like a glaring omission in the toy industry right now as far as something they're missing that's so obvious that's another tough question because i've been out of [00:33:52] Speaker 1: the toy business for a while now even though my partners and i continually look to invent ideas we haven't done anything in the last three years really that you know we wanted to show anyone um look at other we look into other categories now but but um glaring omission i guess you know i guess it'll come back to the advice that that i went to hasbro one time with uh when i was still working on gi joe which was what does the toy do it's a simple question what does it do and if all it does is look nice or po it's poseable or it rolls and it has an opening hatch that's not good enough anymore yeah and so i think a glaring omission in the toy business is give me toys give me something that does something yeah i don't care what it is go back to the well like you we talked earlier you know go back to the well of old toys go back to the 50s and the 60s okay the era when i was growing up and you say to yourself okay what were the toys that fascinated me that i played with for hours i literally mean hours yeah okay and figure out a way of making that more modern and nobody does that like the toy i spent hours playing with in the summer time were water rockets yeah okay i my grandfather and grandmother lived across the street from us and they had a big yard filled with fruit trees so it was nice and cool in the summer okay so it was on a real hot day if if we weren't playing baseball okay and if i was just alone or i had one or two friends over we'd go over my grandfather's yard and we would play with water rockets simple parks plastic water rockets find a way to make that different new exciting okay um that's one just one simple example of how to make make a toy great again i guess is just take a look at a line of toys and figure out like i'm disappointed in action figures because with the exception of and even i don't even see it out of them anymore teenage mutant ninja turtles i don't even see the toy features in their figures that they used to have yeah you know yeah give me a toy a figure that does something you know i get complaints from people like well why did you do all these neon joes and with these oversized weapons well we did them because they shot things and you can't do a mini mini gun because it becomes a choking hazard yeah so you had to make a big gun that shot a big projectile but man did that inject a new uh enthusiasm for the line i mean we doubled sales in a year because we added toy features to what we did take vehicles that do things don't just give me a model kit in a box you know that's great for the kiddo yeah all right but for the kid it's got to do something so give me a toy that does something i told you earlier my favorite toy in the summer was a parks plastic water rocket yeah how the heck do i even remember the name parks plastic right how many people would even remember that yeah it was a stupid little red one piece or two piece injection molded uh rocket that you pumped up with air right you filled it with water pumped it up with the air and go up 50 or 60 feet in the air right later on okay if i was really good and i went shopping with my mom or dad they got me the parks plastic rocket that had the mercury capsule on it okay that would detach as it was falling back and had a parachute oh oh yeah if you had one of those man you were king in the neighborhood the battle wagon one of my favorite all-time vehicles things [00:38:09] Speaker 3: that was awesome awesome awesome toy yeah um yeah like well what i like you know touching on the joe brand is you know you have the guys that were there for the 82 line and they're the purists so by 87 they were like crystal ball nah you know but i loved it because i came in in like 85 i was born in 82 so it's like 85 i started having them as a little little kid but i got the 80s and the 90s you know people talk about oh i'm an 80s child yeah you had great stuff but i had 80s and 90s batman animated series ninja turtles were going into the 90s as well exo squad yeah so to me i loved the neon joe's you know because it was cool it was fresh it was something different something different i didn't you know i looked at the straight you know od green guys at flea markets i'm like i'd rather the the neon blue snake guys over here you know again like things like the battle wagon like it firing projectiles was so cool you know and i think you know that's just a a small thing is like they kenner lost it because what was it not buck rogers or something where the the kid choked on the missile so the boba fett didn't have the missile anymore so he stopped doing firing missiles for years but then you guys are like let's do firing missiles sure all you had to do is figure out a way to make it [00:39:36] Speaker 1: bigger yeah just make it bigger just make them bigger yeah so they're not a choking hazard one of [00:39:40] Speaker 3: the best things i ever got from school was the the little test tube for the choking hazard yeah it's like does it stick out of it yeah all right you're good you're good you're good yeah um you know but again the new generation they don't know what a choke tube is it's like what's that yeah but um you know i i worry about that with action force i'm like well i gotta have it age graded for a certain age but it's it's adult collector stuff but i would love to do firing missiles it's just fun yeah you know i did glow in the dark for a figure and i'm like this is fun exactly you know where's the [00:40:13] Speaker 1: fun it gives you something to talk about yeah and and that that one thing can maybe bring other people [00:40:19] Speaker 3: attention to the rest of the line yeah yeah i try to do what i can like they my friend calls it like the holy trinity back metal glow in the dark and some was it smelling smelling plastics yeah i i were flocking because i experimented with looking into doing flocking oh okay we did back metal we got glow in the dark but yeah now i got the factory working on some flocking oh cool yeah because i'm like it'd be fun yeah beard and flocked hair yeah you know the technology's there to do it um so shoot female was doing it on moss man it's what's the fun factor because again yes my stuff it sits on a shelf it looks pretty but can it look on this look good sitting on the shelf when it glows in the dark or something like that so you know when i did the glow in the dark figure i had people saying like i don't know what you put in there but it's like a nightlight it's so bright so like i shut my light off in my room and i'm like oh cool that's that's what i want to hear yeah exactly you know because [00:41:18] Speaker 4: yeah it's like if you're going to do a gimmick is the gimmick fun um they can tell you've got a [00:41:24] Speaker 3: passion for this hey yes you have to i mean how do you do stuff without having a passion for it [00:41:30] Speaker 1: exactly you know that see that i think that's what's missing in the toy business too is that you know if you look at the history of the toy business it started with people like louis marx of marx toys okay louis marx was the innovator of in toys i mean he's made model uh trains right electric trains uh he made tin toys and he just had the whole world he made ended up making uh action figures with you know um johnny west sergeant stoney i mean he he just had a his company made everything yeah they were the largest toy company in the world at one time bigger than mattel bigger than hasbro at one time right as the company grows and as you start bringing in people who don't feel toys see louis marx grew up in the toy business right steven hassenfeld grew up in the toy business right his father was an innovator in in plastics okay one of the first companies hasbro to get involved in plastic molding um ruth handler and her husband and tell right for barbie these were people who ran the company with a hands-on approach as we move away from that and we start bringing in people from consumer packaged goods right procter and gamble yeah heinz ketchup lace potato chips coca-cola what do they know about toys right you need merchants you need people and that's a problem that became a problem at the retailer okay when when i was selling toys at hasbro you know working with our sales force we were dealing with buyers who loved toys yep and they stayed in that job for years okay they weren't there for six months and toys was their training ground then they got moved over to video games or they got moved over to uh you know electronics yeah or they got moved over to buying health and beauty aids right no they loved they were there because they loved buying toys and they became experts at it and we would seek their advice get their counsel on what we were trying to introduce right that doesn't exist anymore so that could be part of the reason why the toy industry is where it is right now because they don't have people who understand toys i remember interviewing people for jobs as product managers and you know how when you go on a job interview there's always a trick question yeah i had a very simple trick question and i can't tell you how many people couldn't answer it simple question was what was your favorite toy as a kid that trip people up yeah we trip people up i had people telling me they'd sit there for like 20 30 seconds thinking and then someone would say crayons uh a ball are you kidding me you can't remember what your favorite toy was in 1975 yeah you can't tell me that it was six million dollar man you can't tell me that it was star wars a few years later if you couldn't tell me the name brand of something it was like i gotta think twice before i'm gonna hire this sure and i think too many people in the toy business forgot all that they did because i don't think that people in the toy business any longer are toy people yeah that's part of the problem yeah you know [00:45:09] Speaker 3: well i i could tell the difference like when i got to hasbro and i there were guys that were industrial designers came from like i don't know there's the strict industrial design schools i came from of it it's a toy degree yeah so when we you know you'd see them they were never in fun lab the industrial designers and i was in fun lab all the time it's like i was doing a new line i wanted to see what kids thought of it it's like oh can they do it i was working on spider-man i was like doing these stretchy webs i said well i can do it but can kids do it and at the time i didn't have kids yet right so we went to and i think we couldn't get a fun lab but we went to a preschool like right down the street and i sat with those kids for like three hours just like watching every single kid do it like okay what percentage can do it what can't do it what do they have in trouble with what dexterity they have and i think the younger generation coming in now they i don't think that's on their radar and i'm like i don't get that back because yeah the kids aren't playing with toys but i think it's not just the kids not playing with toys but it's the people making the toys aren't realizing that they're making it for kids and you got to play with kids and you got to see them do it yeah because there's [00:46:22] Speaker 1: nothing more frustrating to a kid is if they can't do what they see in the commercial or on the package or that their mother or father did that they can't replicate because they don't have the dexterity or [00:46:33] Speaker 3: the strength i didn't like transformers as a kid because we got like hand-me-down transformers with no instructions and i was like i can't transform this yeah exactly gi joe yeah or he-man or thundercats but yeah you a kid loses interest really fast i see it with my kids i see it with other kids so yeah like make it easy make it simple what's that saying make it simple stupid yeah but make it simple but make it impactful and that's that where's that that sweet spot yep um you know i i'd like to see you know the the younger generation i you know i don't see the kids coming out of the the the industrial design schools or fit anymore but i'd like to see how those programs are changing and there's still people there like pushing stuff like that because like i was telling you i was a sponge man i wanted to know it all i want to know everything worked and i don't think you know a 20 something year old kid coming out of an industrial design school or even fit or thinking like how double injection molded you know pinless joints work you know what a choke tube is yeah you know i don't i don't i don't know but i i hope it's not lost i hope there's there's still people out there that want to learn you know because again it's like you don't want it to be like just a lost [00:47:56] Speaker 1: art sanskrit you know um yeah let's let's hope that doesn't happen i hope well i was asking my son [00:48:04] Speaker 3: was like dad look i'm learning cursive i said oh they're teaching you cursive and i was like shocked by it yeah because i was like i thought that that would be something that just went away right and because kids are on their phone typing and we're on computers and so that it's like you know yeah we learned cursive and then when i went to comic book school i i write in all caps because when i went to comic book school that's how they you did the word balloon yeah so it just stuck with me but when he told me he learned how to write in script i was like let me see if i remember how to write the script [00:48:34] Speaker 1: it took a second but i was i had a muscle memory comes back right yeah yeah but again lost arts and [00:48:41] Speaker 3: that's you know i'm a big advocate of making sure stuff that you run you know the guys you know the the kirk hindmans the those guys their their knowledge that that you know you guys developed and learned and evolved like that can't get lost yeah can't yeah so you just have to make sure there's other sponges out there that want to soak it up toy wars toy i tell people everyone at fit i say go read this book yep i had heard about the book and i got it and i read it like once a year for like four years and you'll like what i got in here oh yeah i've got one of those still kirk because they talked about this pin in the book yep and kirk hindman's in the book and i went and his office was next to mine when i started there okay so i said kirk did they really have these pins and he goes oh yeah yeah he goes i i think i have one somewhere and literally the next morning he got there way way ahead of me and this was sitting on my desk desk and i said kirk i can't take like this is a piece she goes no it's yours it's yours so this is like that you know and it's like something as stupid as a pin that was made it's like this is history this is as much history as you know uh uh a star wars figure or gi joe or like this is even though this wasn't a product this is toy history yeah and i think that's that gets lost i'd say what advice would you give to you know the new generation but it seems like that's kind of what what you would offer them up yeah i mean listen to [00:50:16] Speaker 1: this uh video and watch this video and you'll learn yeah take it from a guy who's been around and has a [00:50:25] Speaker 3: ton of knowledge um you know i know that you know people love coming to see his shows and stuff if i i would say guys if you come see him at a show yeah get him inside your your law file card but also pick [00:50:37] Speaker 1: his brain you know because dallas is going to be a great show i can't wait we've got some panels that are going to be fantastic yeah um i can't wait to go i you know i had a great time last year last year was my first time there and um i'm just happy i got invited back dallas happens to be one of my favorite cities oh yeah oh yeah i love i love that whole area and uh so i just think it's going to be a fun show i mean we're going to do a panel on uh marketing's involvement with the product development i saw that that got announced yeah uh we're going to do a panel i'm doing a panel with uh carson metaxas on uh uh commercial shoots oh cool the whole commercial yeah uh visual area of gi joe um so yeah it's going to be a fun show i'm really looking forward to it yeah i'm i'm excited i like [00:51:28] Speaker 3: dallas last year so i thought that we can make it work again this year what is cool for me is that like when you guys are there like dave kunitz it's like dave was running boys when i my first internship in 2010 so like i looked up to him yeah you know we'd always stayed friends over the years but like i had my booth there and like he came around like looking at the stuff and it's like it was a surreal moment for me like i'm like yeah whoa like this is nuts you know and then the first time we ever met was the first ever joe fest when i was like literally just starting the action yes line you're like hey i'd heard about your action force line i'm like whoa and i saw like kirk just came over to me and was knew what action force was so it's like that's it's moments like that that i that i love those shows for so but it'll be good yeah i'm looking forward to it