Source: Google Trends
rable music, appeals to a wider age range of girls and to core doll consumers, while Maleficent—due to a darker story of revenge and betrayal—appeals to a slightly older, edgier girl who is not as much a core doll consumer. Maleficent dolls are more of a collector item than Frozen dolls, demand is more modest, and the sales goal is to be sold through cleanly by the end of the theatrical run. The bottom line: There is a broader and bigger audience of girls who aspire to be Elsa and Anna and play out their story.” This sales discrepancy would probably be considerably higher were it not for the fact that the supply for Frozen dolls cannot keep up with demand and are widely out of stock at the major retailers. “We are working very hard alongside our retail partners to get more of our most popular Frozen products into stores. We are continuously shipping our Frozen products to retailers, but they sell out as quickly as they hit the shelves,” says Ferguson. In summary, Jakks is beginning to do well in the fashion doll space, and over the longer term, could represent a real challenge to Mattel and MGA if it can maintain its momentum. However, there are two structural problems that face the company in this quest. The first is that it has not yet established itself as a significant factor in Europe, and for this it would need the type of licenses it now has in the U.S. The company faces a vicious circle in this: Without ex-
44 • THE TOY BOOK
isting strong sales, it does not get good toy licenses, and without good licenses, it does not get strong toy sales. Secondly, current growth drivers are all Disney movies, which will eventually run out of steam. Yes, there will be new movie properties to be had—Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland in 2015 and 2016, respectively—but at this point, there is no guarantee that Jakks will get a piece of either one. Also, Jakks’ non-movie-dependent brands, Tinker Bell and Disney Fairies, are growing too slowly, and Winx is not strong enough to guarantee continued sales acceleration at the rate which the company has seen during the past 18 months. All indications are that Jakks is turning the corner and that the new people it has brought into the organization are making a real difference. I believe that they will find ways to overcome these obstacles in the same manner and with the same zest with which they tackled the challenges that faced them over the past year. ■ Lutz Muller has been active in the global toy and video game market since 1984. He has lived and worked in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Australia, and the U.S. His insights are based on his daily contacts with toy buyers at big-box stores in the U.S. and Europe, his proprietary retailer panel in the U.S., and his third-party manufacturing contacts in China.
JULY/AUGUST 2014