The Least Successful Toy in the World

Nonno

Habari Na Mijeldi
"Toy companies are known for cynically jumping on bandwagons. As soon as a new fad starts, there’s a race to produce products that fall in line with westerns, spaceships, sponges or whatever other imaginary world has captured the elusive attention of five-year-olds.

Sometimes these cynical ideas pay off. For instance, when Hasbro tried to find a way to trick boys into playing with dolls, they struck gold by renaming them “action figures” and giving them a military theme. Dolls for boys was a billion-dollar idea that built an industry that now has grown men playing with dolls. Of course, they also had to add the word “collectible” to attract adults, which adds another layer of genius on top of an already brilliant idea.

But things don’t always work out. Sometimes the cynicism of the idea is so blinding that nothing else is visible. Enter Lionel Trains.

Perhaps we can forgive Lionel Trains for trying to come up with a train set that appealed to girls. They were desperate in 1956. Collectors had come to prefer smaller HO scale trains to the O scale trains that were Lionel Trains’ bread and butter. They were still profitable, but the bottom had dropped out of the market and their sales were in free fall. I imagine that heads rolled, alcohol was consumed, marriages ended and the entire company was plunged into a desperate malaise.

What could they possible do except call an emergency meeting? Again, in my imagination, there’s a young go-getter who stood up with a chart that shows that 98% of their sales are to boys. They’re only selling to half the market! What they need to do is start selling to girls, fast."

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