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face-to-face


with Geoff Walker


As the Chinese say, we are cursed to live in interesting times and what with the share prices going up and down and the global economy in turmoil, what’s your take on the current situation? It’s fascinating to be in business at these times: how you react to it, how you handle it, we’re of a generation of people that has never experienced anything like this in business because most business had been up, up and away so now we are seeing how companies are reacting and how they will come through these trying times and ultimately


what they will look like. So it’s fascinating for any business that’s out there.


How does economic uncertainty and ‘austerity’ impact on things like R&D for a company like Mattel? You take price points into account. My background was 15 years on the product development side with the US brand teams, so


as you see the economy turning you know that the consumers at the higher


end price points are probably going to buy a little bit less round the holidays. But they won’t buy less items because they don’t ever let their kids down, so if their normal budget is 300 quid then they’ll spend 250 but still try and put ten items in the basket. So we ask ourselves do we really need ten items in the boy’s business at £50 or above or do we only need seven? Therefore we try and balance out the price points as we go through the development knowing that mums are gonna have to spend a different budget. But that’s a good aspect of the business: Christmas always comes.


So when you are actively looking for products at certain price points the call goes out for something to fill that slot or do you have something available that you decide to push more? It comes from both sides. When you’re


developing products you try to design them towards certain price points that the market will bear. And then the marketplace will go, “hey this is the dynamic going on


Mattel’s Senior Vice President and General Manager UK and Europe, Geoff Walker, has kept a low profile since he arrived from Los Angeles in January. Maybe he’s aware of how tough an audience the wider UK toy trade can be or perhaps he’s just shy? Or could it be he’s just been seeing how the land lies before making any hasty pronouncements? Whatever the case, he was more than happy to talk to Toy World.


in the UK and we know that the average price of a birthday gift is X so we want to maximise that price point during the year. And then it also comes down to how you promote it and if you’re not going to get down to that price point, how do you promote down to that price point so that when the mums are out there, they can really drive towards that.


Is Mattel able to change direction quite quickly or does it even need to in terms of NPD? No, we’re definitely not a company that shifts direction fairly quickly. I think that right now on the product side we’re focusing on 2013 and 2012 is done for us. But how you change a product as it enters the marketplace is one of the big swings that you can actually influence. Sometimes we’ll let the US launch a year early so they can get a read on certain products. Some don’t work, so we never launch them and some do work and so we can take a year of lag strategy and get a much different read on it, which allows us to pick and choose the price points, pick and choose the items. If they’re developing a much broader range for the States, because they have much more shelf space, I can focus that range here and be much more selective about what will work in this marketplace much better.


So how long have you been here? I got here in January. We left Los Angeles on the 31st, flew all night and landed on the 1st. And it’s been great.


Has it? We’re guessing it’s a bit different to the States. There’s differences in the role and having been in product development for so many


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