Create a Toy Company

     So one particular type of company I would like to create, for the fun of it, is a toy and model hobbies company. The toy industry is very consolidated and very tough, however, but the toys I would like my company to make are the following:

1) A fashion-doll brand
2) Little-kid toys (for example, a competitor to Little Tikes, Step2, Fisher-Price, and so forth)
3) Die-cast toys
4) Radio-control toys
5) Japanese-themed brand

Fashion Dolls
     The fashion doll industry went through a real re-awakening when MGA came out with the Bratz doll brand in 2001. Prior to that, Barbie had been THE undisputed champion of the fashion doll world, and no one could touch her. Anytime any company tried coming out with a doll brand to take on Barbie, they were met with an even more upscale, updated, and cooler Barbie and thus crushed.
     MGA took a completely different path with the creation of the Bratz. Unlike Barbie, which is a fashion doll brand based around a central lead character (Barbie), Bratz are a fashion-doll brand that is not based on any particular character. Instead, the brand, "Bratz," was based on a group of characters, a very hip, urban, edgy, and multiethnic group of characters at that.
     Thus Barbie found itself up against a completely new type of doll opponent. This was not a doll brand based on one central character competing with Barbie, it was Barbie, one character, competing against a brand of dolls that created up to forty different characters.
     Worse, at the time, Mattel had let the Barbie brand slack off a bit. Barbie toys utilized more cheap materials, for example the handbag of a Barbie doll was a solid piece of plastic, whereas with a Bratz doll, you got a handbag made with real cloth and fabric. Being that the Barbie brand is something like one-third of Mattel's revenue, one can imagine what this led to.
     Well, first, Mattel panicked. They watched helplessly as Barbie sales plunged, and Bratz sales surged. The toy industry watched with very keen interest as this upstart company, MGA Entertainment, knocked Barbie off her perch and sent Mattel into a scramble. Mattel responded by trying to copy the Bratz brand. This resulted initially was a failure, with the dolls called "Flava." Mattel now has a version of Barbie out called "My Scene," which is a more hip version of Barbie. They also sued MGA, claiming that the guy who designed the Bratz brand, Carter Bryant, had been working at Mattel when he came up with the idea, and then went to work for MGA, who then developed the Bratz brand.
     Mattel was not successful in stopping the Bratz brand thus far, but they came very close, and really damaged the brand for MGA. MGA, upon thinking it might lose Bratz, responded by coming out with a new doll, called Moxie Girlz. One thing I have always wondered personally is whether Isaac Larian, upon seeing the Bratz idea, ever bothered to ask Mr. Bryant whether or not he had created the idea while working at Mattel. I mean that seriously. If I was owner of a toy company, and had hired on a guy who had previously worked at another company, in particular a company like Mattel, one of the first things I would have asked, just to be on the safe side, was, "You didn't design this doll while working at Mattel right?" And if he'd said, "Well yes, technically..." I'd have said, "I can't use it. If it is successful enough, Mattel could sue and try to claim it is their brand. I don't want to run that risk, or headache."
     I have no idea whether Larian bothered to ask Bryant if he had come up with the Bratz concept while working at Mattel or not though. In an interview done some years ago, when asked about the Mattel lawsuit, Larian said (paraphrasing), "They can't win. It would be like if I were to say I could get into my car and drive to Mars. They can't win." The thing is, they almost DID win, which would tell me Larian must have really though Bryant did not design the doll while at Mattel. So who knows what the full details were.
     Irregardless of all this, MGA did reform the fashion doll industry. The Bratz dolls, controversial as they were, personally I think had some AMAZING fashions. They really made Barbie look ridiculous. In addition, they changed the whole dynamic for how to create a fashion doll brand. No longer must a fashion doll brand be based around one single doll, but instead can be a brand based around a whole group of different doll characters. What's amazing to think about is that initially, Isaac Larian was told the idea would never work. No one would buy a multi-ethnic fashion doll brand based around multiple characters (HA!), and he was told that the success of the brand would not last when Bratz began becoming extremely successful. In this, they were inadverdently right, but only because of Mattel's lawsuit. It would be very interesting to see the position of Bratz right now had the lawsuit never occured.
    Some people may point out that Barbie had multiethnic dolls as well, but with these, it was usually Barbie, the white girl, with her multiethnic sidekicks, whereas with Bratz, there was no central character. There also were no specific ethnicities. Bratz did not have a "white doll," a "black doll," a "Hispanic doll," etc...the dolls were different colors and girls could identify with whatever doll they thought best fit them.
    Several lessons one could probably learn with regards to creation of a multiethnic fashion doll brand are thus, no specific ethnicities, just different colored dolls, and no central lead character.
     Getting back to the point of how Bratz changed the dynamic of the fashion doll industry, as a result, there is now a slew of mutli-character fashion doll brands being created: there are Bratz dolls still, Moxie Girlz, Spinmaster's Liv dolls, Mattel's new Monster High brand, and probably a few others I do not know about.
     My goal for my company is to create another brand of fashion dolls. I would like to revive the hip fashions and concepts that had initially made the Bratz so popular, which seem to have been given up as of late by brands such as Liv and Moxie Girls, and the new Bratz, due to complaints by parents and I suppose also the recession.
     However, I am a firm believer that one could create fantastic eye-catching fashions without creating sexually-provocative dolls. It would be tricky, but I think it is doable. I would like the dolls to be focused on empowering girls as well. They (the characters) can love shopping and fashion, but also be into learning and education as well.

Kiddie Toys
     This would be a brand meant to compete with Little Tikes, Step2, and so forth. I think creating such a company is very doable. It can make dolls, electronics, radio-control, and other such products.

Die-Cast Toys and Radio Control
     One of the most innovative die-cast companies I have seen is Jada Toys. They, like Bratz, came on the toy seen and rocked their industry with really hip, quality, die-cast vehicles. Their die-cast cars focused on the collector's market and the custom vehicle industry. They got a licensing agreement with the DUB brand, which turned out to be a huge hit. One can also imagine how the Fast and the Furious movie series helped popularize the custom car market for their products as well. I would like to create very quality die-cast vehicles based off of the custom vehicle industry as well.
     In terms of radio-control, radio-control toy companies are Mattel's Tyco brand, the Nikko brand, and a few others I am not thinking of. I intend to create a quality, very cool and innovative radio-control toy brand.

Model Hobbies
     This group will likely consist of multiple brands, and will make model trains, hobby-grade radio-controlled aircraft (airplanes and helicopters), die-cast models, plastic model kits, and hobby-grade radio-controlled vehicles, both kits and RTR (Ready-to-Run). The really hip company in the hobby-grade RC vehicle industry I think is Traxxas. They pioneered the concept of RTR, and they are currently the leader in the RC vehicle industry. Their branding and marketing, in addition to the quality of their products, I think is absolutely top-notch (take a look at their website here: http://www.traxxas.com/).

Japanese-Themed Brand
     Well with the success of Pokemon, Digimon, and now Spinmaster's Bakugan brand and the Beyblade brand, why not? Also anime is cool! I would like my company to thus create a cool Japanese-themed toy brand as well. Bakugan I believe was developed in conjunction with SEGA. Jakks-Pacific is currently seeking to create a new Japanese-themed brand as well. Theirs will be called Monsuno. Upon Googling it, it actually looks pretty cool.
     Jakks-Pacific for years has been a producer of children's consumer products and of toys for brands created by other entities. However, now they are getting into creating their own content. And IMO, more power to them.

CNBTNOEHTOY
     That stands for "Cool New Brand That No One Else Has Thought Of Yet" :D I don't know what it will be, but I'll definitely be trying to think one up.