Author Topic: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?  (Read 236389 times)

Offline Nicklab

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #765 on: February 24, 2022, 05:14 PM »
I don't want to beat on a dead horse...  but listening to the GI Joe live-stream today (or the Marvel live-stream earlier this month) REALLY highlights how much passion those teams have for their characters/products.  Emily and Lenny are awesome at their jobs and it shows.  The Star Wars team should be watching and taking notes...

I have some hope with select people on the Star Wars team, like Emily and Chris.  Beyond that?  Meh.

I think that the GI Joe team has a lot more free rein because the operating parameters for GI Joe are very different from Star Wars.  The Joe team doesn't have to deal with the licensor approval process since Hasbro owns the IP.  And then there are the royalties - the Hasbro Star Wars team has to factor that license royalty into the entire budgeting process.  It has to make the entire planning and marketing process dramatically more complicated.  And no doubt there's attention on how they present Star Wars since Lucasfilm Licensing is probably watching it all very closely.
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Offline Jeff

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #766 on: March 25, 2022, 04:58 PM »
A little "inside baseball" news today - Litzky PR is no longer doing PR work for Hasbro Star Wars.  The new PR firm for Hasbro Star Wars is R&CPMK, who has been working with Hasbro on some of their own IP product lines (Transformers, My Little Pony, etc).

The work they are doing on Hasbro's IP lines goes across everything.  So, for example, for Transformers they have done work for the movies, the cartoons, and the toys.  They worked on the Unicron Haslab as part of their work for the Transformers as well.

Interesting to see Hasbro bringing them on board to market some of the licensed IP lines too like Star Wars.  Should be interesting to see how this changes things like the Fan Q&As, the product reveal timing and press release language for Star Wars.
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Offline Dave

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #767 on: March 25, 2022, 05:15 PM »
Interesting. 

I'm surprised they've got different PR companies across product lines.  I wonder if any of that has to do with Disney or other licensees influencing who they work with.

Offline Nicklab

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #768 on: March 27, 2022, 08:27 AM »
I wonder what the new PR firm's assessment will be of how the Star Wars team present themselves in the livestreams?  There are definitely some perception issues that fans have about the brand management team, and that is not the doing of Litzky.  And I agree, the language needs to be tweaked - they're a bit too liberal in how they sprinkle the word "ICONIC" on so many things.
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Offline Matt_Fury

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #769 on: March 27, 2022, 01:12 PM »
I once tried a drinking game where everyone took a drink when Patrick said "Iconic" in the stream....damn near ended up in the hospital!

Any change to marketing would be an improvement at this point.  Just look at the comments during their livestreams...even if you filter out the obvious trolls, you still have a lot of people calling them out for their tone deafness.  They need to get people in place that are actual fans of Star Wars, not corporate shills there specifically to sell a product.
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Offline Jeff

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #770 on: April 28, 2022, 12:46 PM »
I wonder what the new PR firm's assessment will be of how the Star Wars team present themselves in the livestreams?  There are definitely some perception issues that fans have about the brand management team

March 25th - New PR team for Hasbro Star Wars

April 6th Livestream - Jing and Eric (Emily was scheduled to participate but was out sick)
May 4th Livestream - planned "with Jing, Chris, Emily, and Eric"

  Feels like someone is missing...
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Offline Nicklab

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #771 on: April 28, 2022, 01:36 PM »
I can’t say I’m surprised by that lineup.  When one person on the team becomes such a focal point for negativity from your customers, it usually has some basis in reality.  There’s the matter of the person in question getting promoted, and possibly out of the way. 

Other rumblings about the Hasbro Star Wars team?  One person who was formerly a leading member of the brand team was recently moving offices at Hasbro.  Could he be going back to Star Wars?  Also, I got second hand information from a Hasbro staffer that numerous people on the Star Wars team were recently fired.  I put some feelers out about that information but haven’t heard anything back yet. 

It’s a lot of inside baseball stuff.  But I think it has a potentially substantial impact on the brand. 
« Last Edit: April 28, 2022, 01:36 PM by Nicklab »
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Offline Muftak

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #772 on: April 28, 2022, 02:39 PM »
Yeah, I seem to remember the "person in question" got a promotion right after the last Star Wars HasLab campaign ended. Apparently their new duties must occupy too much of their time to carve out space for the livestreams anymore.

Offline Matt_Fury

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #773 on: April 28, 2022, 04:18 PM »
Other than they might talk about the TVC packaging going forward, I have no desire to watch the livestream.  They are just overly scripted and there's no passion or excitement from anyone.  I'm still not convinced Jing has ever watched a  Star Wars movie.
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Offline Nicklab

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #774 on: April 28, 2022, 04:32 PM »
Yeah, I seem to remember the "person in question" got a promotion right after the last Star Wars HasLab campaign ended. Apparently their new duties must occupy too much of their time to carve out space for the livestreams anymore.

Remember, he did inadvertently reveal the Rancor as the third Star Wars Haslab campaign well before it was supposed to be revealed.  That was just the first of several missteps with that particular fiasco. 
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Offline Mister Skeezler

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #775 on: April 29, 2022, 11:20 AM »
Promotions—particularly at that level—are months in the making, and tied to some very real metrics (including retention), so it's not like the Rancor failed and he got a promotion for it.
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Offline Rob

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #776 on: April 29, 2022, 08:53 PM »
Other than they might talk about the TVC packaging going forward, I have no desire to watch the livestream.  They are just overly scripted and there's no passion or excitement from anyone.  I'm still not convinced Jing has ever watched a  Star Wars movie.

You don't want to hear about 4 new releases, 2 of which are photo-real re-dos, one of which is a target exclusive kit-bash, and one of which is a newly painted clone or troop?!

Offline Ryan

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #777 on: May 2, 2022, 01:44 PM »
Don't forget about a new Skittles style retro figure, maybe a Boba Fett or a Mandalorian this time.
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Offline Mister Skeezler

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #778 on: May 3, 2022, 03:24 PM »
Don't forget about a new Skittles style retro figure, maybe a Boba Fett or a Mandalorian this time.

Maybe they'll make Rob's life easy and do a rainbow skittles R2, so he only has three colors to deal with.
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Offline JediJman

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Re: The Future of Star Wars Collecting?
« Reply #779 on: May 3, 2022, 05:23 PM »
Don't forget about a new Skittles style retro figure, maybe a Boba Fett or a Mandalorian this time.

Maybe they'll make Rob's life easy and do a rainbow skittles R2, so he only has three colors to deal with.

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