In a New York Times article by Gregory Schmidt, Schmidt explains how Hasbro has utilized the names of its products in movies, ultimately promoting the company as a whole. To start off, Hasbro's most valuable key resources are the name brands of their toy products. For those who wrote about Mattel for the first essay, Hasbro has similar key resources being the name brands of the toys it sells. For instance, growing up, I knew about Transformers, Spiderman, and G.I. Joe (three of Hasbro's popular toy products), and I watched the corresponding TV shows for each of those toys. Hasbro has taken their toys and marketed them through a completely unique mode - via TV shows and movies. Hasbro uses the screen arts as a form of entertainment in itself, but it reaps the full rewards of having shows and movies because it has the corresponding merchandising rights for the toys. Having an established toy brand name gives movie and TV show writers a frame to deal with, and Hasbro can also reinvent the products' brand names after they come out on film. The presence of these brand names, while still very prevalent, may have fallen out of favor in the eyes of the customers in recent years. These names are perfect for revival in the movie industry, and Hasbro has taken advantage of the fact that people still know what Transformers and G.I. Joe's are.
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| Old (1980s) Transformers | Old (2007) Transformers |
The article says that Hasbro has become, "an entertainment powerhouse," with the release of the Transformers series as well as other movies such as G.I. Joe. Hasbro has so many toy and game brands to work with that they can create an interesting storyline straight from their brands. For instance, they are combining their G.I. Joe toy with the game Battleship for a movie that will come out this summer. While likely a loose connection to the games and toys, the (re) recognition of viewers for these two products is will lead to an increase in sales. Prior to the Transformers movie, for example, toy sales had declined. Transformers was very popular in the 1980s and early 1990s with a television show and a popular line of toy products. Hasbro believed that the idea of a Transformer was still really cool and could be targeted to the same audience that played with the toys as kids, but were now older. Grossing over 2.6 billion dollars, it is easy to say that Hasbro was correct in their belief, and likely will be correct in making more movies.
Another important aspect to Hasbro's company is the partnerships it has with Lucasfilms (Star Wars) and Marvel Comics. These key resources give Hasbro essentially free marketing whenever somebody sees something dealing with Star Wars or the Hulk or Captain America or Spiderman and wants to get a toy for their kid, they have to buy a Hasbro toy. The Avengers movie that is set to come out this summer is going to be popular because so many people the age of our parents and younger read comics and love reliving their childhoods. The cost of the partnerships with Star Wars and Marvel is a sunk cost at this point, but Hasbro still makes so much money from their toy sales that it pays off for the deal.
Hasbro's business model changed over recent years from being simply a toy company who targeted children with average-priced toys to more than that. Hasbro now is a toy company who targets kids with average priced toys as well as playing movies for people of all ages to see, and hopefully buy the toys as well. Hasbro found an interesting way to expand upon what it already had in the brand names, and made that key resource even less replaceable. The presence of the Hasbro characters is now even greater, and they are getting to a point where they are far ahead of their competition in branding and marketing their products. I think there is a difference in making a Barbie movie or a Hot Wheels movie that Mattel could make and the Transformers, G.I. Joe, Star Wars, or Marvel movies that Hasbro benefits from. Hasbro's toy brands can be more easily created into movies for people of any age to enjoy, and the fact that they noticed a market for their toys in the movie industry puts them way ahead of the 'game.'
The two most important things that Hasbro has created with the movies are: a completely new industry for their company that still deals with the same toys they know, and free marketing for games and toys that they have complete merchandising rights to. Success in the movie industry directly increases the sales of corresponding toys, and as Brian Goldner put it in the article, “'Our four movies made $3 billion at the box office, but we made $1.6 billion in sales of merchandise because we own the I.P. and all the merchandising rights.'” Hasbro is no longer just a toy company that has to market itself, they can just sit back and reap the benefits of being a success of their movies on top of their already successful toy business.
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