Letter writing campaign to GG regarding...

[jedi_master_sal]

This link is a letter writing campaign to GG regarding their inadequate small edition sizes, plethora of exclusives, extremely flawed raffle system, and bad customer service. It is address to LFL.

Please do NOT let the fact that this is a Rebelscum thread deter you. You do NOT need to post there to help in the campaign. Just copy the letter, edit as you wish and mail it to the address provided.

Here's the link:
http://threads.rebelscum.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=2687005&page=0&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=3&vc=1&PHPSESSID=

If GG won't hear us directly then if we can get it through to LFL that one of their licensee is screwing the pooch, maybe just maybe we can get something accomplished here.

-Sal

[Darth Slothus]

Sorry, as soon as I read Rebelscum, consider me deterred. It's the way of things.

[jedi_master_sal]

Sorry, as soon as I read Rebelscum, consider me deterred. It's the way of things.

Yeah I know. But I'm thinking beyond RS and that this is more a whole collector community thing and not an RS thing. If we can't unite for a cause when we have the same interests, well nothing is going to get done.

Sometimes peopel have to put aside their differences for the "greater good" so to speak. In this case it's all of we collectors making a statement to LFL, not just scummers. I'm not a scummer myself. I've been registered there for several years and I think I've posted there maybe a half dozen times total.

[Darth Slothus]

Sometimes peopel have to put aside their differences for the "greater good" so to speak.

No, we don't

In this case it's all of we collectors making a statement to LFL, not just scummers.

Against LFL about a licensee?? Seriously, if I thought that would even remotely possibly make any kind of dent I'd be in

I'm not a scummer myself. I've een registered there for several years and I think I've posted there maybe a half dozen times total.

 

 
[/quote]

[Jeff]

You do NOT need to post there to help in the campaign. Just copy the letter, edit as you wish and mail it to the address provided.

If you don't need to post there, and all you need to do is copy/paste a letter, then why not copy/paste the letter here to save time for folks instead of making them chase it someplace else? 

[Chris S]

You do NOT need to post there to help in the campaign. Just copy the letter, edit as you wish and mail it to the address provided.

If you don't need to post there, and all you need to do is copy/paste a letter, then why not copy/paste the letter here to save time for folks instead of making them chase it someplace else? 

A very valid point and it's what should have been done in the first place.  So the following is the original forum posting containing both versions of the letter.  As a huge Star Wars fan I would strongly urge anyone who feels the same as I do to please mail a copy of this letter to LFL.

Alright guys, I have two versions of the letter, that you can choose from I thought this would be better because you could choose which one you liked the most to send in. They all cover the same points but they have slightly different tones.
Feel free to add your own personal experiences to each letter, just paste it into a word processor and edit in what you'd like.

Just adding these instructions so there is no confusion for newcomers:
1) Paste the letter into a word processor, edit to your liking then print.
2) Sign your REAL NAME at the bottom, no screen names or this wont be taken seriously.
3) Stuff it in an envelope and send it to the address below. These will get a lot more attention sent in by hand as opposed to an easily deleted e-mail.

Lucasfilm Publicity Dept.
P.O.Box 10228
San Rafael, CA 94912

Special thanks to all of those who helped with writing the letter. Thanks mostly to all who are serious about sending one in, instead of mindlessly complaining you've made yourself part of a solution and thats what it will take to truly change anything.


Here is letter one:

Dear Mr. Sansweet, and Mr. Roffman,

I’d like to start by thanking you for taking the time out of your schedules to read this letter, which is a joint effort from many collectors of both Star Wars and Gentle Giant. We would like to discuss some of the problems that Gentle Giant has been reluctant to address- including edition sizes and volume of exclusives, Premier Guild raffle “randomness”, and customer service.

First, the volume of exclusives this year by Gentle Giant is staggering. There are quite possibly more Star Wars exclusive in their mini-bust and maquette lines than “regular” releases. Most collectors feel a certain number of exclusives add a fun challenge to collecting and make for a special memento from a convention, but when the number of exclusives becomes excessive (there were five available just for Celebration IV), most collectors begin to feel overwhelmed. Exclusives stop adding fun to the hobby and begin to dominate it. Gentle Giant has designed a “World Tour” consisting of five different events in five different cities. (Celebration IV in Los Angeles, San Diego Comic-Con, Baltimore Comic-Con, a Forbidden Planet store event in London and a Blister Store event in Tokyo.) While we as collectors LOVE the idea of fans from around the world getting to share in excitement for Star Wars products, we are left holding our heads as each event gets a different Clone Commander mini-bust as an exclusive. Celebration IV had other Star Wars exclusives - a Darth Malak mini-bust and a Holographic Yoda mini-bust. On top of this, each "World Tour event" also has shared exclusives (a Yoda/R2-D2 maquette and an exclusive bust-up set.) Most collectors have been left saying... enough is enough!

Next, edition size of these exclusives continues to be troublesome. After the tour was announced in February, Gentle Giant received a great deal of feedback from their customers (via their blog) to please make these edition sizes large enough to go around due to the overwhelming popularity of the Clone Commanders. Gentle Giant outright ignored these pleas - making the highest edition size 3500 (Commander Cody for SDCC) and the lowest 1500 (Commander Neyo for Blister.) Of course edition sizes of these exclusives correlates to the size of the events they are being sold at. Considering some of these “World Tour” events – especially the Blister event – are very small, edition sizes are being set to micro-edition sizes. The question becomes, if there aren’t enough people attending these events to warrant reasonable edition sizes, why are these exclusives being offered at all?

This is not the first time Gentle Giant has not properly gauged demand from clone busts either. In 2003 they made an “Attack of the Clones” Clone Trooper Lieutenant exclusive with an edition size of 1000 for San Diego Comic-Con. The low edition size caused uproar as there wasn’t nearly enough to go around. Last year Gentle Giant made a Black Hole Stormtrooper mini-bust as an exclusive for Blister in Tokyo. With the same edition size of 1,000, many fans were never able to purchase the item at retail price – even with Gentle Giant offering 500 (half the edition) for sale to collectors via their website. In every instance of their being a problem, representative of Gentle Giant have claimed to have learned their lesson - mentioning they won’t make the same mistakes again. Yet this year, not only did they make the same mistake again, they made it worse by making five different exclusives that many will miss out on, unless they are willing to pay the inflated prices on the secondary market.

Next is the Premier Guild raffle fairness issue. In an effort to make some of these super-limited items available to collectors who cannot attend every stop on their “World Tour” (as if anyone can afford to globe trot for all these items), Gentle Giant has offered (via their website) what they have represented as “random” raffles for a certain percentage of the edition size of these items. These raffles are only available to paying Premier Guild members, which costs a $50 fee. Recently, Gentle Giant held two separate raffles for the Blister Event exclusives - the black-and-white Luke Skywalker maquette and the Clone Commander Neyo mini-bust. They offered 200 pieces of the Commander Neyo bust and 250 of the Luke maquette. While most Premier Guild members lost the raffle due to the odds, that is not our reason for concern.
After the raffle results were e-mailed to everyone, it was soon discovered that only one small geographic portion of the country in the Northeastern U.S. (along with a couple collectors from overseas) actually won the Neyo bust. Since this discovery, members from both the rebelscum.com forums and the gentlegiantcollectors.com forums have been collecting the locations of the winners and losers. With at least 78 out of the 200 possible Neyo winners accounted for, no one outside of certain select Northeastern zip codes has won. The winning states include: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania and one winner in Northern Virginia. Zero winners outside of these zip codes have been confirmed, while hundreds of losers have been confirmed. Something indicates that this "random" raffling system, which each Premier Guild member paid fifty dollars to have the privilege to use, probably isn't as random as Gentle Giant claims. While only slightly different, the B&W Luke maquette yielded the same results with a few winners as far west as Ohio and south as Florida. Some very basic statistical analysis shows that while these results are possible, they are highly improbable.

Gentle Giant has indicated that they use different “factors” to determine winners – “randomly” sorting entries by these factors in small batches. Why should any factors be used? Why should zip code ever be a “factor” in a random raffle? Or the first letter of your last name? Or whatever other data they have collected on their Premier Guild members. Essentially, if we as members can figure out a pattern to a raffle (which we have clearly done) it obviously was not executed in a truly random fashion – no matter Gentle Giant’s intent. The biggest concern is that this will continue to happen, preventing the vast majority of people who joined the Premier Guild from having a truly fair chance to win these raffles. Recently hundreds of posts on this issue were made on Gentle Giant’s blog. Gentle Giant would not confirm there was a problem - instead replying with a simple statement saying that the raffles are still random and this one was run the same as the others.

This all leads to the last problem - customer service. Gentle Giant seems to have trouble with even the most basic customer service issues. Some people don’t receive e-mails from them regarding their product news and availability, while others never receive replies at all about their concerns and questions. Many online users have reported making repeated attempts to contact customer service regarding one particular question/problem without success. Most customers have to come realize that Gentle Giant’s customer service/fan relations and web team departments consist of two people only (Amanda Burns and Jewell Morrison). Considering the amount of Star Wars (not to mention other) product Gentle Giant is now responsible for, is it reasonable to expect two people to be able to handle this load and deliver the level of excellence the Star Wars brand deserves?

In conclusion, we wanted to bring these problems to your attention because communicating them directly to Gentle Giant has been an ongoing problem. We feel these issues all cast a poor light not only Gentle Giant, but on the Star Wars brand in general. The worst part of it all is almost everyone in the galaxy thinks that Gentle Giant products look amazing. Yet their business practices seem more interested in creating an artificial hype than providing their customers with satisfaction. In the end, the Clone Commander busts won't be remembered by how nice they look... but by how much of a hassle they were to obtain. Does Lucasfilm want the Star Wars brand to be closely associated with the word "hassle"?

We are requesting Lucasfilm aid us in asking Gentle Giant to truly address these problems in an ongoing manner. Decreasing volume of exclusives and increasing the edition size of those exclusives to more closely meet demand would be a great start. Heightened communication and customer service is also a top priority. We understand that many millions of our hard earned dollars are at stake here, and as representative of that money, we would like to remind you that when things are working properly, everyone wins. Customers are happy and well cared for. Gentle Giant can grow and thrive both economically and creatively. And Lucasfilm and the Star Wars brand can continue to be thought of as the pinnacle of excellence.


Your time and help are greatly appreciated.

May the Force be with you!



And here is letter two:

Dear Mr. Sansweet, and Mr. Roffman,

I’d like to start by thanking you for taking the time out of your schedules to read this letter, it is great that there is an avenue for collectors with concerns to discuss problem issues directly with you.

This letter is a joint effort from many collectors of both Star Wars and Gentle Giant, and we would like to bring up some of the problems that this company has been reluctant to respond to. The first being edition sizes and the problems that they can cause, the second recent events involving the Premier Guild raffles, and finally a lack of basic customer service. All of which reflect poorly on the Star Wars brand.

The edition sizes set by this company can only be described as mind boggling at times. I’m sure Lucasfilm Licensing was aware of the recent decision to make the Clone Commanders Cody, Bly, Bacara, Neyo, and Gree mini-busts convention exclusives. Each different commander is set to be released at a particular stop on Gentle Giant’s World Tour. After the tour was announced in February Gentle Giant received a high amount of feedback from their customers to please make these edition sizes large enough to go around due to the overwhelming popularity of the Clones. Gentle Giant outright ignored their most valuable customers making the highest edition size 3500 (Cody) and the lowest 1500 (Neyo.) This is not the first time this has happened. In 2003 They made a Clone Trooper Lieutenant exclusive with an edition size of 1000, which caused some uproar as there weren’t nearly enough to go around. Last year they made a Black Hole Trooper with the same edition size that was met with even more uproar from fans, only 500 were available to collectors outside of Japan. In every instance of their being a problem they have claimed to have learned their lesson, also mentioning they won’t make that mistake again. That coupled with the enormous amount of feedback they got on this issue makes it pretty clear that this is not what their fans wanted. Not only did they make the same mistake again, they made it worse by making five different exclusives that many will miss out on, unless they are willing to pay the inflated prices on the secondary market.

The second issue is the Premier Guild raffle system this company uses to distribute exclusives to those who cannot attend the World Tour events, and since no one has been able to make it to all five stops around the World, all of Gentle Giants fans are non-attendees this year to some degree. Recently, Gentle Giant held two separate raffles for the Blister Event exclusives, the black-and-white Luke Skywalker maquette and the Clone Commander Neyo bust, left over from the event in Japan. The Neyo bust had only 200 pieces available while the Luke maquette had 250 pieces available. Both were available to only the paying Premium Collectors Guild Members via the raffle system. While many lost the raffle due to the odds that is not our reason for concern. After the raffle results were e-mailed to everyone, it was soon discovered that only one small geographic portion of the country (along with a couple collectors from overseas) actually won the Neyo bust. Since this discovery, members from both the rebelscum.com forums and the gentlegiantcollectors.com forums have been collecting the locations of the winners and losers. With at least 78 out of the 200 possible Neyos being contained to states east of Pennsylvania and north of Maryland, something indicates that this "random" raffling system, which each Premier Guild member paid fifty dollars to have the privilege to use, probably isn't as random as Gentle Giant claims. While only slightly different, the B&W Luke maquette yielded the same results with a few going as far west as Ohio and south as Florida. Some very basic statistical analysis shows that while these results are possible, they are highly improbable. The biggest concern is that this will continue to happen keeping the vast majority of people who joined the Premier Guild from even having a chance to win these raffles. There are many people in the Guild that have not won a single raffle, and there have been nine of them so far. This information was given to Gentle Giant only to be replied with a simple statement saying that the raffles are still random and this one was run the same as the others, there was no attempt at addressing the concerns this situation brought up.

This leads into the greatest problem: customer service. Gentle Giant seems to have trouble with even the most basic customer service issues, some people don’t receive e-mails from them regarding their product news and availability, others don’t receive replies at all about their concerns and questions. Communication with Gentle Giant insiders was one of the perks offered to their Premier Guild members, and it has been virtually non-existent. If Gentle Giant were willing to communicate with it’s buyers, and address the issues brought up there would be no need for this letter.

In conclusion, we wanted to bring these problems to your attention in the hopes that you will be successful in communicating them directly to Gentle Giant. Several attempts have been made by individuals to bring these and many other issues to them with no success. Communication has been an ongoing problem that has only earned frustration, and many have tired of trying. The actions taken recently with edition sizes, raffles, and the lack of customer service cast a poor light not only on Gentle Giant, but also on the Star Wars brand in general. The Gentle Giant products are something that we all would like to continue to collect, but with decisions like the ones that they have continued to make are only turning people away that would gladly pay for. Instead of keeping a happy fan base, they create artificial hype that only gets them negative publicity in the end. The Clone Commander busts will more than likely not be remembered by how nice they look, they’ll be remembered by how much of a hassle they were to try to collect.

We would like to see some solid responses and actions taken to change these problems. Increasing edition sizes and making fewer unique exclusives would be the easiest way to solve these problems. Heightened communication is also a must as it is important for the people who buy these products to know their concerns are being dealt with and not brushed aside.

If you would like to look into this problem more, we recommend looking at the different Star Wars fan forums online, particularly:
“rebelscum.com”, “gentlegiantcollectors.com”, and “gentlgiantltd.com”
Quality customer service can go a long way and we hope that Gentle Giant can embrace that philosophy.

Your time and assistance are greatly appreciated.

[jedi_master_sal]

Sometimes peopel have to put aside their differences for the "greater good" so to speak.

No, we don't

In this case it's all of we collectors making a statement to LFL, not just scummers.

Against LFL about a licensee?? Seriously, if I thought that would even remotely possibly make any kind of dent I'd be in

I'm not a scummer myself. I've een registered there for several years and I think I've posted there maybe a half dozen times total.

 

 

[/quote]

Okay seriously take a look at my post count there. Then take a look here. I've got many times the amount of posts here and in only a couple of months.

So please...don't lump me in with that lot. The only reason I even knew of this was from another collector in my state collecting group. I don't troll RS's forums at all. Hell, I'm registered on several other forums too. Doesn't make me a full fledged member there either. I think I'm on Yakface, and have been for sometime, but I couldn't tell you my forum name to save me.

Sloth, seems like you like to create a stir for the sake of it. I don't. I'm just trying to help in any small way I can. If you don't want to participate, fine, but the info could be helpful to others. I'm keenly aware of what RS did last year to some of the forumites (some of which are here too) and that many of those defected to other sites JD being one of them.

I'm not new to this, just to JD. I'm a well respected member on a few sites. A mod on one of them and a former toy reviewer on another (my choice due to illness).  Get your facts straight before rolling your eyes. It really only makes yourself look bad when you've been given the rest of the picture.

I'm not some johnny come lately collector. To be honest the main reason I'm here is because of an invitation from Jesse who I know presonally as in, "in person." Our local collecting site went down when jawa.net did and he offered to have a home here on JD (even if temporary). So myself nad others took him up on the offer. However, I've decided to stick around.

So let's play nice. Thanks.

You do NOT need to post there to help in the campaign. Just copy the letter, edit as you wish and mail it to the address provided.

If you don't need to post there, and all you need to do is copy/paste a letter, then why not copy/paste the letter here to save time for folks instead of making them chase it someplace else? 

Yes my bad. I should have done that. Apologies.

-Sal

[Darth Slothus]

Create a stir...
So, that's what you come up with?

I probably was thinking the same thing Jeff was when he read your initial post as well. Why not save the folks some time? Thankfully Chris has done this now for folks.

To me referencing that site seems in some way to be advertising or giving props to them- not a stir to be clear- it's my opinion.

Also when you say you've been a member to something for that many years then try to soften it by saying you only posted a dozen times(you've obviously done your homework here and know alot of people here don't like their forums or management)- yeah..in the same sentence... it DOES make my eyes roll to be honest. Decypher? It sounds like you do alot of reading there.

So you respond with.... Oh 'it's Slothus being stirful'..interesting.
So, you say you're a member of ton of websites...moderating..reviewing..yadda,yadda. If this were true then I could guess you've participated in much forum? So, as soon as anyone has ever said anything conflicting to you or had a different POV on something did you view them as stirring it up? Just wondering
It sure is appearing that way after your reply. Please remember it's a forum and folks don't always agree or respond in ways you'd expect..but, you probably knew this right because all of your stated experience?

Can you imagine if we all agreed..talk about a bunch of robots.

DS
 

[Nicklab]

Honestly, I think the intentions of this letter writing campaign might be coming from the right place.  But the realist in me says that I don't think Lucasfilm Licensing will give you the answer that you want to hear, if any at all.  I also can't see them publicly trashing one of the companies through which they're licensing Star Wars product.

Gentle Giant has become aware of much of the collector displeasure this summer.  But do you also realize that the goal of so many exclusives is to generate buzz about their product line?  Do you not see a vast increase in discussion about Gentle Giant product on message boards?  For every one collector that vows to drop out of collecting Gentle Giant product, there are probably two to replace them because of the buzz that has been generated by this summer's exclusives.

The intentions are in the right place.  But are they grounded in reality?  That's up for debate.

[Jesse James]

Just to step in a little bit...  The "matter" of the letter being posted here has been resolved obviously, so the discussion of someone's "loyalties" more or less (is that the discussion?  I can't tell, nor do I really care either) is pretty pointless.

I know Sal's not active at Scum...  He has an account there, but I know he's active at another site and doesn't post at Scum much that I've ever been aware of (and I was active at Scum for quite some time), so to his defense I know he's not advertising Scum and I know he's just trying to promote this letter he's in support of due to frustration he's voiced a number of places...  Whether it works or not?  Hey, it's not my place to tell you it won't if you want to try, so whatever...  It might, and it might not, but it's not my place to dictate to people their communication with companies they are not entirely happy with either.

Either way I suggest you voice your opinion on the matter, and happily drop the subject after that.  You're completely free NOT to send a letter, or you're equally free to send one and hope it does some good.  The letter's been copied for ease-of-use now though, so there's all the things someone needs to get involved if they want right here.

Good luck to the GG collectors, I'm sure it is frustrating from what I've heard from my friends who collect, so I hope only the best for the fans of the line. 

[Paul]

My favorite part of that letter...

6th Paragraph, around the 4th Sentence

"Zero winners outside of these zip codes have been confirmed, while hundreds of losers have been confirmed."

Yes, yes they have.  Hundreds, perhaps thousands....

I would suggest if this is a cause you choose to support, have someone write a good letter and be more focused. 


And be careful what you wish for...if LFL kills the license with GG...you realize that means no more mini-busts and that they will find a new licensee who will do it different and all continuity in your collection is shot...

[Rob]

And be careful what you wish for...if LFL kills the license with GG...you realize that means no more mini-busts and that they will find a new licensee who will do it different and all continuity in your collection is shot...

This is my main concern as well.  I'm new to this line, and I don't have nearly the number of problems that many people seem to have. 

I'm going to be flat out pissed if this leads to Lucasfilm killing GG's license.  And I don't think it's as impossible as the people at RS think.

 

[Darth Slothus]

Jesse, talk about the topic? I did, along Nicklab's lines, earlier mentioned here

Against LFL about a licensee?? Seriously, if I thought that would even remotely possibly make any kind of dent I'd be in

Sure it seemed pointless to me too, I guess I just don't let it go too easily when I'm incorrectly accused of things and when statements are made that are false. The Forum owner asked me to get the facts straight - which was all I was doing anyway - when I read the 2 statements he placed in one sentence (the facts) and the fact that the other site was even mentioned, oh..and combined with the fact that he should have just posted the letter here without even talking about the other site could have saved ALOT OF CONFLICT in this thread.

I'd like to talk now about the point Paul made which I believe is a valid one. While I initially believed a signed letter would not help at all; Paul's point that it could hinder things is quite believable. So I would like to 'modify' my stance on the issue to be 'a letter would do no good but could possibly do harm or hinder the current state of the licensee's issue'.

DS

[Darth Slothus]

I'm going to be flat out pissed if this leads to Lucasfilm killing GG's license.  And I don't think it's as impossible as the people at RS think.

As will I be. No more animated maquettes as a result? Yeah, you betcha I'd be mad too.

DS

[jedi_master_sal]

I get that the letter has flaws. That's why it's suggested for you to use this as a basis and edit or rewrite as you see fit.

I agree it wouldn't be good for the line to be killed. However on that note, I won't be collecting the new smaller sized busts and don't colelct the maquettes, so for me it only affects the mini busts themselves. Since I'm looking to downsize how much I collect, this would be one place for that to happen. No I wouldn't like to see GGs SW line end. But it's also not the end of the world for me either.

Jesse, thank you for the kind words.

Indeed I only meant to post the link for GG collectors should they want to join in with others who are feeling the same frustrations. I don't go promoting other websites. Heck I mentioned in my previous response that I'm a mod on another collecting site, but none saw me post what site that was and won't (unless they want to know and then only by PM).

I don't think LFL would trash GG publicly. The would have a meeting behind closed doors if anything and in the future we might see things change.  GG wouldn't have to say why they changed. (Even if we knew why). Hey can still save face with both LFL and we collectors.

I can only see it as a win for everyone. GG as well as LFL make more money, and collectors are happier being able to get the product they desire. Yes, that's completely, but I'm trying to be an optimist here. (heh, almost typed Optimus...can't get Transformers out of the brain.)

-Sal