Subject:
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Re: A Day in the Life (was:Re: Lego changes CEO after new losses_
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego, lugnet.general
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Date:
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Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:33:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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6040 times
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In lugnet.lego, Thomas Main wrote:
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Well, I meant that as a joke.
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Yeah, well, the joke stopped being funny about three years ago. About the time
when they had to start up an entirely new production line just to keep up with
consumer demand for BIONICLE product (don’t worry, they upped the price on Toa
by a buck to cover the cost of the new equipment, so it’s not draining funds
from other themes).
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I am aware that Bionicle is extremely sucessful. But your post did get me to
thinking. Bionicle is such a strong brand by itself that as long as TLC is
looking to sell properties to (I assume) raise cash...Bionicle would be a
heck of a choice :P
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Common sense says that when you’re trying to trim up your company to become
profitable, you don’t drop the stuff that’s making money. The theme parks sound
like they’re one of the big drains that needs to be plugged up, but getting rid
of BIONICLE would put them deeper in the hole (not to mention the fact that in
order to find a willing buyer, they’d probably have to bundle free or
nearly-free use of the entire TECHNIC system in with it). WotC played this same
game when Hasbro tried to trim them up, and it didn’t go over very well. They
were told to cut expenses by a simple percentage, so what the top management did
was go through and axe entire projects that they weren’t very fond of, rather
than getting rid of the dead weight that was dragging them down. The result was
that they were even less profitable since those ex-projects were actually
bringing in a small profit, while some of the favored projects where bleeding
like a stuck pig because various do-nothing friends had been hired into
meaningless positions as personal favors. They screwed up when they were given
the chance to handle it on their own, so Hasbro’s corporate people came in and
did it for them. Or to them, in some cases.
Now, in WotC’s case, they were running the company like a giant frat party, but
they had a couple of huge money-makers (Magic: The Addiction, and PokéCrack)
that kept them profitable. In TLC’s case, they’re trying to run a clean company
but market shifts are draining their profits while they try to figure out how to
adjust. In either case, improving the company’s bottom line requires careful
cost/benefit analysis, not cutting projects based solely on personal preference.
After all, that could backfire on everyone. Perhaps the person left to make
such decisions would feel that the Designer series isn’t glamorous enough for
today’s market, and replace it with some flash-in-the-pan movie license.
The only thing they need to do with BIONICLE is start taking advantage of its
full potential, by licensing it out to more than a scant handful of companies.
Kids have been begging them for Halloween costumes since the line debuted, and
they’re just finally producing two costumes, neither of which appear to come
with the appropriate accessories (nor can you buy those specific weapons
seperately). Another big request is something that could be used for a
BIONICLE-themed birthday party, and all I’ve been able to suggest before now was
buying mask packs as party favors, and seeing if they could get official
permission to have a cake made using copyrighted characters.
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