Word: hasbro
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...adults as gross, it has struck a chord with children, driving revenues from $1 million in 1997 to an estimated $15 million this year. More important, Rumpus represents the kind of fun-first, marketing-second approach to toymaking that has become alien to America's corporate giants Mattel and Hasbro, which together control about 30% of the toy business. The corporations instead scheme to recoup their nine-figure licensing fees for movie characters by filling the pipeline with action figures...
...past decade, the company, along with rival Hasbro, has been relying on acquisitions for sales growth. Last year Mattel purchased Learning Co., a maker of educational software with sales of $850 million, for $3.8 billion, and Pleasant Co., maker of American Girl, for $700 million. Not to be outdone, Hasbro picked up Galoob, maker of Star Wars figurines, and Micro Machines for $220 million, Furby founder Tiger Electronics for an additional $335 million and Pokemon licensee Wizards of the Coast for $325 million. When that becomes your business--buying ideas and then marketing the hell out of them...
That's bad news in an industry that relies on hits to get kids and parents into the stores. This year, for example, Hasbro and retailers were betting on products licensed from Star Wars' prequel Phantom Menace to drive sales into the crucial fourth quarter, which accounts for half of all toy sales. However, the force has not been with the Star Wars line. "It was very strong in May and June, during the movie's release," says Leslie Rauch, a senior buyer for Target stores. "But since then, it's become nothing more than a boy's action figure...
...understand that e-mail from ranting strangers isn't for everyone. So here's another way to have more fun with e-mail, one to one. Hasbro Interactive's Em@il Games are $15 programs that attach interactive game boards to most e-mail programs so people can play Scrabble, chess, Battleship and other amusements. Demo versions can be sampled at www.emailgames.com Now if only there were a way to play on the train...
...tall and has an O-shaped mouth and bulging eyes. It looks a lot like creatures from the movie Gremlins. ("I do have a sense of deja vu when I look at those things," says film director Joe Dante. Warner Bros., which made Gremlins, has voiced concern to Hasbro, the corporate parent of Furby manufacturer Tiger Electronics, about the similarity...