Did Mattel and Channel 5 screw up Thomas the Tank Engine’s overhaul?
The Background
Towards
the end of last year Mattel announced it would be giving everyone’s
favourite talking train a makeover as part of a new commercial
strategy to sell Thomas the Tank Engine worldwide. The revamp would
involve balancing out the ratio of male-to-female trains and the
introduction of new characters from India, China, Mexico and Brazil
as Thomas heads off the beaten track.
So far so good, until its imminent UK broadcast was announced in September 2018 and derailed Mattel’s good work.
The Big Idea
In an undoubtedly creative move, Mattel decided the best way to revamp the franchise was to give Thomas the Tank Engine a worthwhile purpose. To do that it coupled up with the UN on a collaboration to develop the new series around several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The UN and Mattel held a series of writers’ workshops to jointly develop storylines and the new characters, and to adapt SDG messages around equality and sustainability for young people, all with the aim of developing its young viewers into ‘more responsible adults’.
What They Did
This
unique partnership was first announced to an industry audience at
MIPJunior Cannes (a global kids entertainment industry event) in October 2017. Lots of big corporates are looking
at ways to support sustainable development goals (SDGs) but few come up with a business action that
is as strong as this. As we know, expectations on businesses to be a
force for good are coming from all angles –
customers, regulators, governments and investors –
and not only does this partnership satisfy those attitudes, it has a
strong commercial edge – after all, the second biggest market for
Thomas merch is China.
In
this initial announcement, Mattel was able to frame the partnership
in a commercial context, setting it up as part of a new international
strategy for the franchise. At the time, it was largely reported as
an innovative move, without much issue. Fast forward to September
2018 and Channel 5’s children’s channel, Milkshake, made the
announcement that this new diverse and multicultural series was about
to air.
Queue
consumer outrage.
Mass reporting of how the ‘liberal, PC brigade has gone too far this time and are messing with childhood treasures that 'never did me no harm’, set Twitter alight. You’d be hard-pressed to find a supportive voice – even the comments on the Independent’s article were anti.
The Review
Mattel’s innovate, creative and commercially astute work risks being undone by an announcement from a broadcast partner. I don’t know what co-ordination there would have been between Channel 5 and Mattel, but Mattel appears to have put the reputation of one of its prize assets into someone else’s hands.
It would have known from the original announcement that it should expect some consumer backlash to the changes, and given the socio-political context in the UK at the moment, it would have been reasonable to question whether or not the new series should have been trailed in the news media before it airs.
There is a strong argument to say that its target viewer would have been better reached through other channels that would allow better message control, saving the new series from being on the receiving end of a co-ordinated, mass editorialised outrage of Channel 5’s own making.
If the series was a success versus the old format it could have gone
out with that news post-broadcast and made it harder for the anti-PC
brigade to rage away on comment sections of news articles which fed
the fire on Twitter.
In Hindsight
Don’t
put control of your reputation into other people’s hands. If other
broadcast partners make similar announcements across the US and
Europe, the results will likely be the same given current prevailing
attitudes to globalisation and multiculturalism.
Mattel’s
idea to partner with the UN was pure creativity and the decision to
take that business action packs a lot of punch in terms of its
reputational value, but also exposes risks that need to be managed.
Heritage brands need to be handled carefully, especially when loaded with cultural nostalgia. What was an appropriate messaging for an industry audience is not always the same for a public audience. Potentially, Mattel now faces a tougher context for selling Thomas in other markets. It should look to regain control of the message to keep its plans on track. Choo Choo.
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