Re-Inventing Hotwheels

garzpacho writes "BusinessWeek has an interview with Gary Swisher, Mattel's Vice-President of Wheel Design, who talks about the challenges of designing new toys for today's tech-savvy kids. In addition to discussing 'the challenge of stewarding an old-school brand like HotWheels in our tech-driven age, the emerging technologies that will affect the toy industry, and Mattel's Web strategy,' he also talks about the effect that video games have had on toy design, and argues that exciting the imagination is the most important role that a toy can fill."

Comments

I buy hotwheels cars practically every other day

[LiquidCoooled]

They don't need to reinvent themselves because they are perfect as they are.

My youngest is a clutcher and takes a car with him to school every day.
Most days he doesn't come back with one, or if he does still have one, you can bet it wasn't the one he took.

Changing times call for changing business model

[path_man]

Lego is a great example of adapting to the changing world. For example, a few years back when they were all the rage, my son had upwards of 20 bionicle Lego sets. These are the kits that let you build robot-like guys with ball-and-socket joints and interchangeable arms/legs/heads/weapons.

These are a long ways from the red and blue square blocks that Lego made when I was a kid, yet the idea was the same: give a kid a kit that they can primarily build the picture on the box with, but the ability to adapt a few kits into something all together different. My son built everything from hover-crafts to star-wars droids to ultra-mega-bionicle-man.

Not to crack on Mattel, but the core hotwheels concept is die-cast metal cars that resemble the real things. The only "innovation" that I see them coming up with is the new H3 with pimp spinners, a lift kit, and gold trim. Unless they come up with something like Lego has with the shift away from their legacy product and into a new Internet age toy, Mattel will be doomed to a niche of kids who really dig cars (arguably a shrinking demographic...)

Re:Changing times call for changing business model

[Red Flayer]

Sure, Lego has three main lines now -- Legos, Bionicle, and Technik (sp?).

But most of Legos "innovation" now comes not from new products, but from licensing. I recently went to a Lego store for the first time (awesome! the only problem was I didn't have a kid with me, so it would have creeped people out if I stayed there too long...) and was amazed at what was available... for $60-$100. Star Wars, Batman, etc.

Lego's patent is expiring/has expired. The shift to Bionicle and Technik reflects the concern that basic Legos will be facing cheap competition in the very near future. The shift to licensed subjects for kits also addresses this issue. I'll be able to buy basic "legos" for next to nothing... but if I want that AT-ST Lego model, I'll be paying through the nose for it.

That said, does anyone recall what happened to Fischer-Technik? Those were the most amazing toys when I was growing up... expensive, but I got a solid foundation in mechanics from play.

Re:Why does everything need to be tech based?

[ClemensW]

"The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect to their elders.... They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and are tyrants over their teachers."

Now guess who said that?

Socrates, greek philosopher, 470-399 BC.

Very probably in his advanced years ;-)

Re:The only thing HotWheels needs...

[WinDoze]

4) Rusty old, hoodless 1955 Chevy tow truck.

My daughter (2.5 y.o.) has one of these in plastic. In came in a box of Mini-Wheats. We took her to see the movie a couple of weeks after it came out, and immediately upon seeing the poster with that car on it she started yelling "MINI-WHEAT! MINI-WHEAT!!!!!" Seems she thought the truck's name was in fact "Mini-Wheat".

Back to Basics, Please!

[PhotoGuy]

I loved HotWheels as a kid, but now that I have kids, I am so disappointed with all the crappy and expensive fluff. We don't need a fire spitting demon track, battery powered launchers, or hundreds of crappy and brittle little plastic pieces to put together for the "sets". Too many themes, with large towers and crap that snaps and breaks easily, or pieces that get lost and ruin the set. I was shocked at the stupid and needless themes, and poor quality. None of the sets were usable beyond the first setup of them. My son has more fun with my old track, curve, loop sets, with a bit of gravity to launch some stunts. If a pieces gets lost, no biggie, they're all basic and rugged units, not specialized and poorly built theme sets.

I searched high and low last Christmas, and couldn't find a basic set with some track, a few curves and maybe a loop, and some cars. (I ended up buying some bulk track, couldn't find any curves; and a few cars. Not as much fun as when I was a kid.) Please, HotWheels, get back to the basics, with some well built, simple, and fun, sets. I think you'd be surprised at how much appeal (and profits) it would find.

I see it a bit like Scrabble, one of my favorite games. There have been attempted variations of it, most of which sucked. But they have come out with deluxe versions of the old game (fancier tiles, rotatable board, electronic versions, etc.); that's useful and classy enhancement of a sure-fire formula. But changing the fundamentals usually blew the formula. Same thing with chintzy and expensive theme sets from HotWheels, IMO.