Salon.com > hasbro

Hasbro: Monopoly contest helped lift sales

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 21:35:00 +0000

PAWTUCKET, R.I. (AP) — Hasbro reported first-quarter results Monday that beat Wall Street expectations as the toy maker benefited from an online contest that let people vote to eliminate one of its Monopoly tokens and introduce a new one.

The Pawtucket, R.I., maker of G.I. Joe, My Little Pony and Transformers said revenue rose for three of its four categories: games, girls and preschool. Its boys category continued to face troubles, with sales down 20 percent.

Rival Mattel, which is the world's biggest toy maker with its Barbie dolls, also reported better-than-expected results last week, as strong sales of dolls like Monster High, Disney Princess and American Girl helped more than quadruple net income.

Hasbro, meanwhile, said growth in its girls category for the period was driven by Furby, My Little Pony and One Direction. Play-Doh helped boost its preschool category and action games such as Angry Birds Star Wars helped fuel growth in the games category.

The company also noted that the Monopoly contest was "tremendously successful" and that it plans to follow up with new versions of the game.

The Facebook campaign earlier this year let people vote to eliminate one of the eight tokens that identify the players and introduce a new one. Ultimately, a cat token replaced the iron.

Monopoly turns us into capitalist vultures

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Monopoly has been much in the news lately—not because the Obama Administration has suddenly assumed the guise of a vigorous anti-trust cop (fat chance!), but because the toy company Hasbro is making a conspicuous change to its flagship board game. In a contest held on Facebook over the past month, Hasbro invited the public to decide the fate of one of Monopoly’s classic tokens—the little metal figurines that represent each player on the game board. After more than 10 million votes poured in from fans in 120 countries around the world, the firm announced yesterday that, by will of the people, the old flat iron would be replaced with a new token in the form of a cat.

But what does Monopoly actually mean to all those millions of voters, aside from being a perennial diversion for families forced to endure rainy summer days indoors? Last fall an article in Harper’s magazine by Christopher Ketcham examined the peculiar history of Monopoly, a game that has, over the past 110 years, been periodically repurposed to teach a number of often conflicting lessons about economics.

The clothing iron doesn’t need Monopoly’s lousy endorsement

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:52:00 +0000

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — When online voters nixed the clothes iron token from Hasbro's Monopoly game, the appliance was held up as passe, as something your grandmother once used to ease the wrinkles out of linens and handkerchiefs.

"Despite being an integral part of life when the token was added to the game in the 1930s, the iron has fallen out of favor with today's fans," the Rhode Island-based company said in announcing its replacement: a cat.

But even with the rise of wrinkle-free fabrics, the iron, it seems, is holding its own.

While U.S. iron sales declined in volume 1 percent last year, they were up nearly 3 percent overall from 2007 to 2012, according to the market research group Euromonitor International. Over the same period, steam generator irons — which make more steam than traditional ones, speeding up the process — experienced what the firm called "enormous growth." Sales were $368 million last year.

Kim Kalunian irons nearly everything: sweaters, dresses, pants and even jeans. The 23-year-old digital producer at WPRO Radio in East Providence inherited her distaste for wrinkles from her mother, whom she describes as a "fierce ironer." She finds the chore — and the hiss of the steam — therapeutic.

Personal tech upends the toy market

Sun, 23 Dec 2012 19:49:00 +0000

Children have played with dolls for millenia. It was a good run.

Mattel is the maker of Barbie and Hot Wheels, but this year its top selling toy is a plastic cell phone case, according to the Financial Times (subscription required):

Whether a new Kindle Fire, or a hand-me-down iPad, analysts predict 2012 will be the year children as young as three-years-old will unwrap tablets at trendsetting rates. And that has the traditional toy companies scrambling to stay relevant.

“The top two guys, Mattel and Hasbro, they are terrified,” said Sean McGowan, managing director of equity research at Needham & Company, an investment banking firm. “They should be terrified, but the official party line is they’re not terrified.”

Hasbro supports Elmo despite controversy

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:00:00 +0000

"Sesame Street" is fighting to protect the reputation of its beloved puppet, Elmo, after accepting the resignation of longtime Elmo voice actor Kevin Clash, who has been accused by two men of having sexual relations with them as teenagers.

Hasbro has released a statement to E! News supporting Sesame Street:

"Sesame Street and its wonderful characters have been entertaining and educating children and families for more than 40 years," a Hasbro spokeswoman told E! News. "We are confident that Elmo will remain an integral part of Sesame Street and that Sesame Street toys will continue to delight children for years to come."

Hasbro's Elmo dolls still on sale include the Ready for School Elmo doll, the Sesame Street Playskool Let's Rock set and LOL Elmo, a follow-up to the popular Tickle Me Elmo doll.