http://patchesofpride.wordpress.com/

Wonder what this will eventually mean for Joe?

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Hmm, I saw some of the people mentioned, but I didn't realize it was this many. That sucks. Bad for people to have their job taken away, and also bad for the over all toy industry. This would seem we are in for even more articulation cut backs, and more corner cutting over all.

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Sucks, but how are they expecting to make a profit if the customers can't find the products they want in stores? The big problem is right there.

Nothing good about the loss of jobs, but I hope that a majority of those were heads of the marketing and distribution departments. They seem to be way out of touch.

GIJoe brought Hasbro to the top in the 60's, maybe it's time to refocus on the brand that brought them there...

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Jay C from TNI tweeted one of the people cut was the lead designer for Marvel Universe. That news shook me because that line is doing really well.

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The suck part is, Hasbro has been showing strong profits for some time. I really can not grasp why they'd fire people if the company is actually doing well overall, beyond my often-stated dislike of how Brian Goldner runs the company because the guy is rather clueless.

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Not surprized to be honest, when you look at how distro has been since the Indy line it's really far beyond expected.

However they keep cutting back and things will fold in the AF departments, Avengers is going to pegwarm hard and it looks like they put a good chunk of money into it, That first wave of Joe doesn't look like it will sell great either which will create a clog at the stores again (Think Thor here). Useing systems that are proven wrong is not the route to go.

If I were to guess (and I haven't had a chance to ask Jay yet) part of the MU issue might have been what happened with the movie lines as they had a bigger presence and since Wolvine they have been under the same unbrella (wolvie was the one exception for some reaon, I suppose they were figureing out the Marvel licence). Then again with the high levels of recycling in MU he might have been let go cause he was only designing one figure mold a year.

In regards to Hasbro.. really... this is blamed on under performance... by the lead designer? really.
Are these brilliant Corp's that lost in their own struggle that they can't see the Forest for the tree's?

Has no one above the Q and A guy read any of our questions?
Here's the last bazillion Questions...

1) wtf distribution
2) wtf distribution
3) Flagg?
4) wtf distribution
5) wtf distribution
6) wtf distribution
7) Kwinn?
8) wtf distribution.

We can't buy your product if it doesn't reach the shelves.
Sure you have repaints, but when the MU wave with Cable is hitting NOW, you have a friggin problem here BRO.
Stop playing the blame it on the retailers, and figure out a way to fix the problem, or guess what, your next designer will under perform too!
Too many excuses, not enough Data, it's always "Collectors didn't support the line" then it's "This line is for kids", then it's "retailers weren't interested".
I'm sick of hearing what you can't do, I want to hear what you can do. Hasbro maybe the biggest Toy company now, but the momentum of fail they have had over the past few years is staggering.

G.I.Joe ROC FAIL
Iron Man 2 FAIL
Thor FAIL
Captain America FAIL
Transformers Prime fist Editions EPIC FAIL
Transformers Dark of the Moon MISMANAGEMENT FAIL ( canceled the entire Movie trilogy line )
and now... while I call it.. The Avengers FAIL
G.I.Joe Retaliation MISMANAGEMENT FAIL (wave 1 on the shelves for 12 months)

the last two maybe speculation, but nothing like speculating on a repeating offender.
I really wish they would fire marketing, Sales, Research, and Operations, before they kill off the Artists.
Brian Golder much like the scarecrow, would be much happier if he only had a brain.

I looked on their careers page, they require a lot of education for even an intern job, so why do they run the business like a bad Economics high school class?

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I would also like to add the marketing geniuses who can't synchronize the release of a toy line while the cartoon is actually on TV on their own freakin' channel.

Management keeps their jobs while it's the working force that get's the axe.
They're designing great toys, but they don't reach the customers, that's the epic Hasbro fail.

For instance, Renegade Storm Shadow. Ebay sellers shouldn't be able to get $35+ for a figure that just came out. Oh wait, it only came out in a few stores that got one case each. Oups!

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You bring up a very good point. The company I work for boasts increasing profit numbers for the past couple of years. However, they are planning another round of layoffs before year-end and we didn't get any pay increases from last year either.

From what I understand, the revenue streams are not increasing so they have to cut expenses elsewhere to make it appear they are earning more. It comes off like a screwy shell game maneuver.

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In Hasbro's case, there was too much overlap the past few years from having Thor, Iron Man, and Cap movie lines out along with MU and ML, then the Avengers line. Not to mention that overproduction of initial movie waves and the distribution issues.

Basically, they need to streamline and simplify how they handle the Marvel stuff for going forward.

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The bit I read said due to poor performance of puzzles and games during the Xmas shopping season.

Who buys kids puzzles these days? I surprised there's much of a board game market anymore, either.

Hasbro has under 7000 employees. . I realize most of the manufacturing work is done by contract in China but that doesn't seem like much for a global toy giant

We definitely can't buy product that isn't available. I agree that distribution is a big problem, but I still think that the bigger problem is that the case assortments are so terribly planned that there is no sell-through on product that does reach the shelves. Hasbro can only do so much to get retailers to carry the product, but they do have control over packing 3 Thors to 1 of every other character and then also packing those same Thor figures in the next case assortment, and then later creating a case with one new figure and nothing else but repaints of the figures from the first wave.

I understand that retailers probably want more of the core characters because they think the core characters sell better, but honestly, do the retailers actually even know which specific figures are in a case? If not, and I have trouble believing that they possibly know anything more than "we purchased x-thousand cases of G.I. Joe" if even that, why continue to maintain that strategy when it isn't working? If the marketing responses are to be believed, they don't even admit there is a problem, but I'd like to believe that they would get the message when their own e-commerce arm HasbroToyShop refused to sell individual figures anymore since they were getting stuck with the same overpacked figures.




Actually, the MU wave with Cable has been on shelves since about a year ago. It may be that you haven't been able to find Cable until now, since he's apparently shipping in a new revision wave that I've seen at several Wal-Marts.




I don't see how the Avengers line possibly succeeds, as we already have better versions of most of the main characters, they are too expensive for kids to buy, and the articulation is terrible on nearly all of the figures.

I think the Retaliation line actually has a decent mix of characters, and it doesn't feel like overkill like the RoC line. However, I don't understand why Hasbro doesn't combine the last three waves into one case - having two new figures each in waves 4 and 5 almost guarantees that they'll be really difficult to find. Regardless, I'm sure that the best we can hope for is that the line does solid numbers, as the current retail environment largely ensures that no line can be a huge success.




As much as I wonder if the executives have any real understanding of their business, I'm becoming more convinced every day that the action figure toy industry has finally reached the breaking point and that even better practices would only slightly delay the inevitable end. In other words, instead of "!!deth of teh line!!11," it may be "!!deth of all lines!!11."

Really odd to can a lead designer. Even if the offerings were reusing parts and molds, packaging MU still seems far more successful than when it was SHS or any other rendition.

Talent pools always suffer. It was this way back during their "reorganization" and it is the same now. Ditto this when one company takes over another, like when Jakks took over PlayAlong and publicly promised not to can their talent pool.

Then did just that.

Seriously, Market Research makes tons more than the designers. Best to let them go, or better yet, "reorganize" them to distribution to earn their chops again from the ground up.

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Agreed, especially since thier jobs are a mess to begin with, they never get a decent sample, nor do they look to see if the results were valid to possibly investigate flaws in the research.

Best case they hop from study to study without follow-up and ask VERY leading questions that often would have different answers if they were more open ended.

I belong to a political discussion board and there were some posts that was very relative to the point you made. A poster there was talking about how its the bean-counters/accountants who are the ones in charge and get the final say on everything. This is opposed to the people who actually design the products. Another person chimed in with his experiences at his job. He said that management was constantly going on expensive trips for "focus" or "brainstorming" and just one of these managers would run up more in cell phone bills than the poster made in a month. Thing is when he made requests for replacement of equipment, equipment that is necessary to run the business, he would get lectures on the needs to "keep costs down". I suspect his experiences are true of a lot of places, possibly even our beloved Hasbro.

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