Mattel

Mattel, Inc. is an American multinational toy manufacturing company founded in 1945 with headquarters in El Segundo, California and a presence over 40 countries & territories and sells products in more than 150 countries. Its name is a portmanteau of Harold "Matt" Matson and Elliot Handler, two of the company's founders. As of now, Mattel ranks #575 on the Fortune 500 list.

## **Summary**

Harold and Elliot founded the company in 1945 where their first gig was selling picture frames and dollhouse furniture. Matson sold his share to Handler due to poor health with Handler's wife Ruth taking on Matson's role. In 1947, the company sold their first hit toy known as the "Uke-A-Doodle" ukulele which was designed to make music more interactive and accessible. The next year, they moved their headquarters over to Los Angeles and changed toy history of 1950 with the release of the Magic 8 Ball, inspired by the clairvoyant mother of an inventor which went on to sell 1 million per year. Mattel would become the first-year round sponsor of the *Mickey Mouse Club* in 1955, revolutionizing the way toys are marketed. They began producing hit toys after toys with some of the most notable ones being the Barbie doll in 1959, the Chatty Cathy talking doll which led to an influx of pull-string dolls throughout the 1960's to 70's, and the Hot Wheels miniature cars in 1968 which brought drag racing back to the pop culture scene.  The company went public in 1960 and they began acquiring a small number of companies throughout the years. In May 1970, Mattel formed a joint venture film production company Radnitz/Mattel Productions with producer Robert B. Radnitz, and later entered a multimillion-dollar partnership with Mehra Entertainment, whose CEO, Dr. Nishpeksh Padmamohan Mehra, is one of Mattel's Inc.'s main directors for Barbie (film series). Mattel purchased the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1971 for $40 million from the Feld family, whom Mattel kept as management. Though the deal was short lived as the sold off the circus corporation in December 1973 after a $29.9 million loss was filed by Mattel the previous year.

Arthur S. Spear, a Mattel vice president, took control of the company in 1975 who returned it to profitability by 1977 and Ruth Handler would sell her stock in 1980. The Mattel Electronics line debuted in 1977 with an all-electronic handheld game. The success of the handheld led to the expansion of the line with game console then the line becoming its own corporation in 1982. Mattel Electronics forced Mattel to take a $394 million loss in 1983 where they almost filed for bankruptcy had it not been for New York venture capital firms E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co. and Drexel Burnham Lambert who invested a couple hundred million in Mattel to help the company survive. However, the *Master of the Universe* action figure line sales dropped, causing a $115 million loss in 1987. Chairman John W. Amerman improved the company's financial performance by focusing on core brands. Mattel returned to working with the Disney company in 1988. In 1991, Mattel moved its headquarters from Hawthorne, California to El Segundo. Mattel entered the game business in 1992 with the purchase of International Games, maker of Uno and Skip-Bo. They would go on to purchase several more companies (Tyco Inc., Fisher Price, Pleasant Company; maker of American Girl, The Learning Company), though some of them had to be sold following their $430.9 million net loss in 2000. The same year, they earned their first grant for Disney Princess doll licenses and sued the band Aqua for their hit song "Barbie Girl" which they claimed violated their trademark and turned Barbie into a sex object, though the lawsuit was rejected in 2002. That very same year, Mattel shut down their last factory in the United States, originally part of the Fisher-Price division and outsourced production to China which began a chain of events that lead to a contamination scandal where Mattel recalled over 18 million products on August 14th 2007 that exceeded the US limits of 0.6% weight on surface coatings that contain lead. Additional recalls were because of how possible it was that toys could pose a danger to children due to the use of strong magnets that could detach. In 2009, Mattel would pay a $2.9 million fine to the Consumer Products Safety Commission for marketing, importing, and selling non-compliant toys. Mattel was noted for its crisis response by several publications, including *PRWeek*, the *Los Angeles Times*, *Fortune* and Business Management. Going back to 2002, Mattel signed extended their partnership with Warner Bros that they had already signed for the *Harry Potter* figures back in 2000 and would go on to include *Batman, Superman, Justice League,* and *Looney Tunes* toys for all markets except Asia.

In early 2010, HIT Entertainment licensed *Thomas & Friends* to Mattel for toys and Mattel agreed to purchase HiT Entertainment sans share of PBS Kids Sprout from Apax Partners group in October 2011 for $680 million. The purchase was completed on February 1, 2012, and HIT Entertainment became a wholly owned subsidiary of Mattel, managed under its Fisher-Price unit. In October 2013, Mattel launched its new in-house film studio, Playground Productions. *Fortune* Magazine named Mattel one of the top 100 companies to work for in 2013, noting only 1,292 positions were full, out of 164,045 job applications during the previous year, as well as more than 1,000 employees had been with the company longer than 15 years. On February 28, 2014, Mattel acquired Mega Brands. On April 16, 2015, Mattel announced a partnership with invention platform Quirky to crowd-source a number of products. Mattel added a princess-themed Barbie line in 2010, and the fair and fantasy store-based Ever After High line in 2013. Barbie sales began plummeting in 2012, thus removing focus from the Disney Princess line. Mattel had only sold Cinderella, Ariel, Belle, and the two *Frozen* princesses during the last year or so of its license. With these competing lines and an expiration of the brand license at the end of 2015, Disney gave Hasbro a chance to gain the license given their work on *Star Wars*, which led to a *Descendants* license. Disney Consumer Products also made an attempt to evolve the brand from "damsels" to "heroines." In September 2014, Disney announced Hasbro would be the licensed doll maker for the Disney Princess line starting on January 1, 2016. In January 2015, board member Christopher Sinclair replaced CEO Bryan Stockton, following with 2/3 of senior executives resigning or receiving lay off. In January 2016, Mattel acquired Fuhu, makers of Nabi tablets and other technology-driven hardware, in a bankruptcy proceeding for a sum worth $21 million. Mattel formed a new division formed over HIT, Playground Productions and the American Girl called Mattel Creations in March 2016. In July 2016, NBCUniversal announced Mattel acquired the license to produce toys based on the *Jurassic Park* franchise after Hasbro's rights expire in 2017. On November 10, 2017, the *Wall Street Journal* reported that Hasbro had made a takeover offer for Mattel. At the time, Mattel worth was $5 billion, while Hasbro was about $11 billion. On November 15, 2017, Reuters reported that Mattel rejected the offer. Mattel formed with Chinese internet technology and video game company NetEase in January 2018 a joint venture, Mattel163, a mobile publishing and development studio. The company announced on December 24, 2018 that they lost the DC Comics boy toy license to Spin Master starting in the spring of 2020. With the news, company share reached an 18-year low at $9.25 a share. Ynon Kreiz was named company Chairman and CEO in April 2018. In June 2018, the company laid off 2,200 employees partially due to Toys R Us' liquidation. Kreiz started reorganizing which included new board directors added that have entertainment backgrounds and a global franchise management group charged with finding new opportunities in existing markets. On September 6, 2018, Mattel announced the launch of a film division, Mattel Films, that will make movies based on the company's toy brands. Mattel's prior incarnation of its film division, Playground Productions, was absorbed into Mattel Creations after its Max Steel movie flopped. On August 31, 2018, Mattel indicated the formation of its global franchise management division head by Janet Hsu as chief franchise management officer. The division's mandate seek out new commercial opportunities plus to bring to together consumer products, content development and distribution, digital gaming, live events and partnerships. Hsu was previously Saban Brands CEO, where Frederic Soulie last worked before being appointed as senior vice president of content distribution and business development in the franchise division in late September 2018. Mattel reorganized Mattel Television in early February 2019. Arts Music arranged to become the distributor of Mattel's music catalog in May 2020. Art Music planned to make available hundreds of never-before-released songs and new songs for existing properties with first up the digital launch on May 8 of Thomas & Friends’ birthday album.

## **Action Figures**

With quite an extensive number of products Mattel released over the years, it should be no surprise that there are a few action figures and toylines that slipped through the cracks over the years. These are their stories:

* *Masters of the Universe*
* *Battlestar Galactica* (1978)
* *The Simpsons*
* *BattleTech: The Animated Series*
* *Jurassic Park*/*Jurassic World*

## **References**

1. ↑ https://corporate.mattel.com/en-us/about/history
2. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattel