Hasbro: We've Released "Plenty" of Female Star Wars: Rebels Toys - Update

[The Youth Counselor]

If female character figures sell less than male character figures, then surely this would be expected? The market responds to demand. If people aren't buying female figures at the rate of male figures, then of course there will be a shorter supply of female figures. What is Hasbro supposed to do about it? If Hasbro could create demand out of thin air, they'd be the most successful company in the world.

Avatar: The Last Airbender had a mostly young adult female fanbase. Mattel owned the license to the franchise. I was never able to buy a Toph or Katara figure for my nieces and students. That is because Mattel never made a female figure from that franchise to entice it's mainly female audience despite a petition that 2,000 people signed pledging to buy one.

http://www.racebending.com/v4/campa...bender-toys-reinforce-casting-discrimination/

Young Justice had a very even demographic between the genders. It was cancelled because there was too big of a female audience. Executives believe that childrens' cartoons are there to primarily sell toys, and they believe that girls don't buy enough of them.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...erhero-Cartoon-Execs-Dont-Want-Female-Viewers

As an avid Lego builder I am hard pressed to find a genuine female minifig which can fetch a hefty price on eBay for such a small plastic item. There is a large demand but the Lego company still won't make enough of them.

There is the practice of responding to demand and there's the practice of self fulfilling prophecies. How can these companies really know it will fail if they don't try. Demographics in cartoons, comics, and other nerdy goodness have vastly changed in the past 10 years, yet focus groups have not.

You can cater to a small market niche or expand to bigger markets by targeting more demographics.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

If female character figures sell less than male character figures, then surely this would be expected? The market responds to demand. If people aren't buying female figures at the rate of male figures, then of course there will be a shorter supply of female figures. What is Hasbro supposed to do about it? If Hasbro could create demand out of thin air, they'd be the most successful company in the world.

Avatar: The Last Airbender had a mostly young adult female fanbase. Mattel owned the license to the franchise. I was never able to buy a Toph or Katara figure for my nieces and students. That is because Mattel never made a female figure from that franchise to entice it's mainly female audience despite a petition that 2,000 people signed pledging to buy one.

http://www.racebending.com/v4/campa...bender-toys-reinforce-casting-discrimination/

Young Justice had a very even demographic between the genders. It was cancelled because there was too big of a female audience. Executives believe that childrens' cartoons are there to primarily sell toys, and they believe that girls don't buy enough of them.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...erhero-Cartoon-Execs-Dont-Want-Female-Viewers

As an avid Lego builder I am hard pressed to find a genuine female minifig which can fetch a hefty price on eBay for such a small plastic item. There is a large demand but the Lego company still won't make enough of them.

There is the practice of responding to demand and there's the practice of self fulfilling prophecies. How can these companies really know it will fail if they don't try. Demographics in cartoons, comics, and other nerdy goodness have vastly changed in the past 10 years, yet focus groups have not.

You can cater to a small market niche or expand to bigger markets by targeting more demographics.

I think much of it is the barrier between " action figures' and " dolls". Many are afraid they will be tossed into the doll category thus alienating their male demographics since it is social suicide for a boy to be caught playing with " dolls". Until they take down the barriers between male and female toys and remove the stigmas associated with these toys, this will continue to be the case.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Ha ha, what a lot of text.

As ever the gender studies 101 class is getting hot under the collar because billion dollar companies won't kowtow to their bizarre attempts to claim their personal moral choices need to be in someway be reflected in the output of corporation and entertainment companies.

It's very simple, very few people actually care about or want female toys in the Star Wars range from Hasbro, it's a trivial matter: if Hasbro thought female toys would make money they'd make them and they don't.

If Markus Persson had listened to what "marketing data" had to say, we would not have Minecraft as well. Much of " marketing data" is just "data" about past trends, it doesn't actually tell you what would or would not be popular or wanted, and frequently ignores market expansion. The biggest sellers are ones they never expected to be. Not being aware of a demand does not mean it does not exist.

"The biggest sellers are ones they never expected to be" - I'd have to say I struggle to agree with this, if anything modern games and TV shows demonstrate that people like their comfort zones and big franchises (COD, GTA, GoT) that they can easily return to. Perhaps the unexpected hits are more eye catching but I wouldn't say they were more prevalent.

It seems to me arrogant in the extreme to dismiss marketing data as "just about past trends" (out of interest on what are you basing this dismissal?), merely because it produces a result you don't like; billion dollar companies tend to have effective sales predictions, the current stock response to pointing this out seems to be that the data is in someway wrong or flawed, which I am sure you can understand isn't a particularly compelling argument and smacks of sour grapes.

To put it another way, "not being aware of a demand does not mean it does not exist" is true, but really, really hoping there is a demand because it would validate one's political views doesn't make it exist either.

Minecraft is an example of how this should play out to my mind: a niche idea, produced by a small studio which does hit a latent demand and suddenly is wealthy, powerful and has made it's point.

If someone has a niche point of view or idea then they should nurture and develop it themselves and then reap the benefits of that; they should not be trying to force that niche point of view on society in a top down fashion, with endless carping on about how they are morally and intellectually superior and thus they get to dictate how institutions and people should react to their personal prejudices.


edit

"Avatar: The Last Airbender had a mostly young adult female fanbase.... That is because Mattel never made a female figure from that franchise to entice it's mainly female audience despite a petition that 2,000 people signed pledging to buy one.

http://www.racebending.com/v4/campa...bender-toys-reinforce-casting-discrimination/"

This is a good example - 2000 people, two whole thousand! I am amazed they didn't start up the production lines immediately, could you imagine the profit bonanza 2000 guaranteed sales would have reaped for Mattel?

I don't know if it's arrogance or naivety but do you honestly think billion dollar companies care about 2,000 signatories to a random internet survey? Do you really think a billion dollar company should respond to such a tiny minority? Do you think this clearly biased and unscientific polling of opinion honestly stands up against professional market analysis?

Minecraft may have started out as a niche before outselling Call of Duty and making it's way to classrooms globally, but it now would be considered mainstream as it's game and toys have outsold the competition by far. According to Notch, he ignored all of of what the "data" had to say and made what he wanted instead. That was the only advice he really gave anyone. MANY hit toys past and present were not determined by " marketing data" they were unexpected best sellers, even now with their massive marketing data, Disney was not prepared for Frozen's toys to sell as well as they did.

Much demand is created artificially regardless of actual demand via marketing, part of marketing is to create a demand for their product where none currently exists rather than rely on an actual existing demand. When you look at the many things that have been made trendy that are absolute garbage, you would see there was no actual demand, but they created it instead.

If you have watched the BBC documentary " The Century of Self", well worth watching, ( http://freedocumentaries.org/documentary/bbc-the-century-of-the-self-happiness-machines-season-1-episode-1 ) you would see the history of this, the methods used and how it came to be. The demand for tobacco industry, diamond industry and even our modern political system have used these same methods to create artificial demand and sustain the consumerism economy.

It has not been/is not actually about whether there is an existing actual demand for female star wars toys, they sell out and are being kept rare and being marked up currently, it is really about whether or not they want to push expanding that demand. They very well may think the risks of being stigmatized as dolls outweighs trying to keep action figures segregated from females reflecting how feminine and female are still stigmatized in actual society by males as being inferior. " You throw like a girl", "that is for girls", " sissy boy" are still very much an issue in society today as they were 20 years ago, not much has changed in that regard yet.

ALSO:
As far as toy petitions goes, 2000 being aware and willing to sign a petition stating an existing demand is quite a bit considering they usually do not make products to fill an existing demand, instead they create the demand via marketing. most people are not even aware such petitions exist, or are willing to take the time to sign one, so that is in no way the only people who want such things.