This is a good point. While a different set of circumstances it's still similar to what happened with the Resolute figures.

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Renegades Law, cool. I just didn't recognize the figure, thanks fellas.

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I don't think our points of view are all that different at all. You're just being nicer about how you convey it.

I'm not suggesting Hasbro gets off on showing us stuff they have no intention of delivering. I believe they genuinely wanted to hive fans that Kwinn at retail. I'll even go so far as to say they mean it when they say they hope to work him into a future assortment.

But being realistic about it,and looking at how previous "delayed" or "cancelled" product shown at cons over history has (or hasn't) eventually made it to market doesn't lead me to predict a happy ending for Kwinn fans. If we see him at all, it will be as an overpriced Club exclusive (too early in his cycle, I reckon, for him to end up at Ross or to get broader distribution in Canada) -- maybe in a two-pack with a slightly repainted or older-head-bearing Doc Venom?

I'll buy it either way, but my point was that Hasbro's best intentions always seem to get stabbed to death by thru inability to get the marketing formula right.

You touched on it above and I know I've Harper on it ad nauseum, but if Hasbro really wanted Joe to work, they'd coordinate their product and their media better. Resolute was clearly a limited series, so why not wait to release it until the relatively few tie-in figures were ready to go to market? Renegades was in development long enough that, especially given the Spartan nature of the character designs, Hasbro should've been able to have a first assortment of tie-in figures ready to launch with the show. Heck, they could've LBC'd and repainted the major characters (with some creative existing accessory selection) for the most part and had their beloved Snake Eyes, Duke, Stormshadow and CC riding pegs the day the Hub network went live.

I know coordinating and executing a multimedia and marketing strategy isn't easy. I bust my ass doing it every day. But it can be done and, frankly, to be successful in today's broad bandwidth/ADD society -- especially when you're trying to target kids -- getting it right is essential.

See that is the thing that always gets me about Hasbro and marketing, They say they are trying to target kids, but they market to the adults.

SDCC is clearly more adlut orented, it's become a pop culture show for movies and TV and really the "comic" aspect of it is kind of to the side. Still these types of conventions are more geared to the adult collector with disposable income, not kids (unless the kids happen to have a parent who is interested in such things, which happens of course, but come comic con you rarely see that).

Similarly Joe con is pretty much geared to the aduts as well. While things like Parachute drops can (and do often) draw in kids (Hey remember the guy who swiped a fig from the kid) the overwhelming majority of the con is geared to the adult.

News released to toy sites, again generally adult orented. Sure that is a realm that is pretty open, but more often than not it's the adults who are flocking to these sites. Really sites like TNI and Cool Toy Review are often overwhelmingly focused on various aspects of collecting (busts, exclusives, Sideshow figs, ect) that kids probably wouldn't be interested in anyway.

HTS-You need a credit card to order, I hope kids don't have that good of a credit rating.

Then there is Renegades, I grant you I wasn't a fan, but I did think this might build up joe, As said the figures should have and could have been on the shelf in time for the show. Hasbro has done this with Clone Wars (granted now they are having troubles getting the figs out when the shows are premiered, but it is an ongoing line and has a presence). The other part of Clone Wars is, that is the very few lines I have seen commercials for on TV (Granted few and far between, but they are there). It's also the toys I see kids looking at in the stores most often.

I guess my main point is, Hasbro designs GI Joe for kids, Fine, but why is it they are targeting adults in thier marketing, I just don't get it. Shouldn't they be targeting that demographic that supposidly are the ones that are buying this stuff the most?

That they decided the biggest pop culture event of the year was a good time to not have a panel or introduce new product...someone's head should roll for dropping the ball that badly.

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That's a big part of what they're getting wrong. They can't decide who their core/target audience really is and stick with it.

Let's discount comics for now (because that's really an adult collector niche) and look at what Hasbro's past (1980s) experiences would have indicated was the "winning combination" for the kid's market they keep saying they're trying to reach. That would be toy and toon (I'm purposely ignoring movies, too, because unless you've got a movie out every other year or some kind of toon tie-in, it's not a very sustainable toy market primer)

Sigma Six and Renegades were clearly designed to appeal to kids with modern anime-informed sensibilities. With the former, they got the toy/media timing almost right, but it didn't hit the way they wanted it to. Worse yet, it alienated a lot of their adult fanbase, so they weren't even getting the modest sales from us that they'd been able to count on in the past.

So did they refocus and try a new permutation for the kid audience? Not right away. Instead they swung back to their faithful yet modest adult collector audience and gave us what they thought we wanted cartoon-wise in Resolute. But the toy timing was way off and the toon was really a cursory effort. Despite those factors, the toys proved popular with our demographic. So Hasbro took some of the characters they'd planned to introduce, supplemented them with some LBCs and turned them into pricey Internet exclusives while refocusing attention on the kids.

We already covered how they flubbed toy/toon timing with Renegades. And apparently the show hasn't performed well for them with the kiddies. Ironically, the folks who will end up buying the toys are, again, the adult collectors...who would rather have the Kwinn and Data Viper that were bumped in favor of characters like Renegades Ripcord.

Adult collectors should be feeling like the fat girl that the unpopular teen keeps hooking up with while he's trying to figure out how to trick the pretty and popular girl into going out with him. Maybe we should adjust our expectations.

Meanwhile, here's a hint for that unpopular teen who keeps running back to us: She's not into you. No matter how many times you try to reinvent yourself, she's still going to see you for what you are and know you don't have anything in common. And your hooking up with me every time she rejects you isn't going to help you get in her pants.

But who knows. Maybe zombie vipers are the magic bullet that will wow both audiences and Hasbro can realize every unpopular teen boy's fantasy of having a threesome with the fat girl who loves him for what he could be and the pretty girl who doesn't know any better.

You know that's what the execs are hoping.

I am seeing that problem across the board with them, Marvel, Star Wars, ect.



Good analogy, Pretty much the conclusion I came to with Sigma Six, just not sure of what kind of analogy to use with my "pick and choose" buying habits now. LOL.



Sadly, Zombie Viper is one of the major things I am looking forward to, it's off the wall, kind of silly, but fits into GI Joe perfect.

I'll take Ripcord over Kwinn or Data-Viper any day, and I like Kwinn.

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And I'd take a repainted Arctic Destro in Eco-Warriors neon over "Ripcord".

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This.

For tonight's production, the part of "Rule-proving Exception" will be played by Jay.



Actually I kind of dig the Renegades figures in a very video game/anime kind of way. Even Ripcord. But I've been waiting for a decent Kwinn in khakis for more than 20 years. So I'm taking out my frustration on the most convenient target.

Point being, if adult collectors were truly a priority (and I'd bet my eyepatch that, based on sales of all varieties of Joe since about 97, we make up the majority of purchases), that Kwinn and Sci Fi and Techno-Viper would probably have been made before now.

It's interesting to note that two of the Renegades characters we appear to be getting -- Airtight and Law -- are pretty faithful to their original looks. Almost as if the guys making the toon realized "You know, the only people watching us are probably grown-up fans. Maybe we should throw them a bone."

I happened to like the Newer toon and appreciated those bones, but it's all symptomatic of their larger marketing dilemma.

I have beaten this dead horse before, but I think Hasbro would really benefit from solid distribution. Whether or not little kids want techno vipers wouldn't matter as much since every adult that wants of ten of them would be able to buy them at will. If they are worried about Kwin not selling then offer him up for pre sale online.

They don't need to spend money marketing to us, we do that for them on these boards.

Use the guaranteed money from adult collectors to help with the stuff being pushed out on shelves in the big boxes.

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They are worried about Kwinn not selling to the retailers more than to you and I.

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This, you guys seem to forget that Hasbro ultimately has to sell these toys to the stores. If anything, and maybe it's time to come up with some form of group that acts as a liaison to the Stores to let them know what are side is looking for. A lot of the recent exclusives have been really bad, and they buy those for collectors.Maybe the misdirecting in production and what's on shelves is due to the fact stores are not in touch with collector bases. Maybe it's time to step in and let the buying side know what needs to be bought, to be sold to us.

Hasbro I bet has a ton of great concepts sitting around waiting for some over-paid purchaser to think it's a good idea. Instead the purchaser says " yea they will dig that lime green Hisstank repaint!"

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Airtight and Law look very little like their Renegades counterparts, I think they were intended as POC/30th figures and were shuffled over to the Renegades subline to "pad it out", so to speak, since they appeared in the cartoon.

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