1988 Mattel and He-Man Telecommunications Ad
Now this is some strange timing for a Mattel ad featuring Masters of the Universe artwork. As I discussed in Action Figures Not Included*, Mattel’s Masters of the Universe toyline crashed hard in 1987, dropping so hard that the company made dramatic changes in an attempt to save money.
Why, then, do we see Masters of the Universe artwork featured in this July, 1988 ad from ABA Journal? Was it that magazine lead times and financial year-end info didn’t align quite right and when the ad was planned Mattel had no idea how far the line had fallen? I’d love to know the story behind this ad, but all I suppose I can do is smile and enjoy the knowledge that this ad even appeared in a business magazine.
Related articles
- 1985 Olmec Toys’ Sun-Man Action Figures (battlegrip.com)
- August, 1997 Kiplinger’s Personal Finance on Mattel and Hasbro (battlegrip.com)
- 1987 He-Man “Escape the Past” Commercial (battlegrip.com)
I work in an Ad Sales department for a magazine as a copywriter, and I have witnessed firsthand the last-minute struggle by the sales reps to get enough ads to fill the blank pages…part of me wonders if a conversation with the Ad Sales director went something like this:
“We go to print in an hour, and there’s nothing to fill page 13, sir!”
“Run that old Mattel material as a freebie. They’re a good client.”
“But sir, have you seen the news on them lately?”
“I don’t care, dammit! Just run the thing!”
Which is why we have this today 🙂
@Wolf – Sounds like my old newspaper days.
Ha! I can only imagine. We have about 4-5 deadlines a month as we handle a number of titles across different countries, but I dread to think how I’d go with daily deadlines.