“It’s not the toy business today.”
If you’ve read my two books about action figure marketing in the eighties — Each Sold Separately* and Action Figures Not Included* — then you know that the toy industry changed dramatically over three decades ago. There was once a time when toymakers focused on new one-off toys, pieces that stood alone, but as time went on they learned that product lines were the safest route to success in the toy aisles of the world.
In this 1985 N.Y. Times News Service newspaper article we get a peek at Coleco’s attempts at survival during the eighties. Coming off of the massive Cabbage Patch Kids high of 1983 and 1984 (see Fantasy : The Incredible Cabbage Patch Phenomenon*) the company was searching for ways to stabilize the company’s cash flow and overall sales, and within this newspaper article we find a particularly enjoyable quote from then-CEO Arnold Greenberg:
“It’s not a toy business today,” Greenberg said. “It’s the entertainment business. We no longer invent single hot products. We invent an umbrella concept, a whole family of products. They are frequently licensed. They are frequently the subject of a motion picture or of a TV show or a book.”
Today’s dominance of the toy and entertainment industries by a few large players started decades ago, in the seventies and eighties, and Greenberg’s words from 1985 are as true today as they were then. A single item may sell well for a time, but an extended life comes only from a line of related products, an “intellectual property” around which many things may be created and sold. The days of one hit that sells and sells and sells ended a long time ago.
Related articles
- 1997 Newspaper Article on Star Wars Action Figures Mentions “Shadows of the Empire” (battlegrip.com)
- Spotted Online – A History of Coleco (battlegrip.com)
- Bernard Loomis Comments on Coleco’s “Rambo” Action Figures (battlegrip.com)