Adult collectors increasingly driving action figure sales

[Jatta Pake]

Kinda confirms what we all know. One of the Star Wars heads estimates that adult collectors make up 40% of the sales of those action figures. (Nod to the guys at Raving Toy Maniac Toy Buzz for linking the article).

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111798131...d=1019&cs=1

[TM2 Dinobot]

Good. Maybe now Hasbro will stop throwing around "Collectors are less than 1/10th of 1% of total sales"

[captain_cbecker]

Good. Maybe now Hasbro will stop throwing around "Collectors are less than 1/10th of 1% of total sales"

Given that Hasbro is far more diverse than just GI Joe and Star Wars, it is very likley that the collectors market is severely dilluted by their other major lines, which includes Parker Brothers, Milton Bradley, SPonge Bob, Sesame Street, Milton and many others that are too numerous to count. The large investment in board games and pre-school themes alone indicate that they are clearly marketing to appeal to kids and not collectors. As the article states, there are other merchandisers that are really choosing to exploit the collector niche (Neca, Mezco, McFarlane) as well as companies like DST.

[Templar]

Good. Maybe now Hasbro will stop throwing around "Collectors are less than 1/10th of 1% of total sales"

has Hasbro been saying that?

'cause... they sure don't ACT like it. Between all the "fan's choice" figures in the Star Wars line, and the fact that the 25th Anniversary G.I. Joes/Transformers Classics exist at ALL... i'd wager strongly they've been listening to adult collectors pretty heavily.

And then there's the whole "Galactic Hunt" concept to the Star Wars figures... which is clearly aimed entirely and exclusively to the really heavily OCD collectors.

Your average kid doesn't care about Darth Malak or Pre-cyborg Grievous... he wants a Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker that he can not only recognize, but he wants "Action Features"... which are notoriously low on adult collectors list of priorities. When they did the Revenge of the Sith line, half the line was targeted... specifically... to adults and was devoid of the "action features" found in the first range, which was composed of "kid friendly" characters. and each line of SW figures that followed RotS, were high-articulation (for SW anyhow), nostalgia-packaging, obscure character filled wave after wave... right up until the recent 30th anniversary which even brought back the Kenner "Collector's Coins" for that little extra push of nostalgic late-20-somethings-with-disposable-income-and-poor-impulse-control marketing.

I'd say Hasbro knows their target market pretty dang well. and that market, while including kids... is heavily driven by adults.