News And Notes, 12/7
Hi guys,
As you can imagine, I am getting bombarded with 2008 questions now that the first sets have appeared in Anaheim. I did release a mask name and power this week, and will do more next week.
However, I'm not going to just hand out the entire first half 2008 info on December 7th, and leave us with nothing to discuss between now and next July. I am not going to embargo all info on '08, but I am going to portion it out so that it lasts. Okay?
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In other news, we had a company meeting yesterday to discuss our year-end results -- while final numbers will not come out until early next year, it looks like we had another fantastic year worldwide, despite the toy market being stagnant as a whole. It's a really remarkable turn-around considering the hole we were in a few years ago. A lot of this has to do with our management team, who have set a really clear direction for the company and been willing to make some tough decisions and dispense with some "sacred cows." And the early read from the market is that our products for next year are some of the strongest we have done in years.
BIONICLE had an okay year, but could have been better. We have some challenges we have to face -- getting away from clone sets means the cost of producing the sets has gone up, due to all the new molds, etc., and that cuts into profitability. And, while we are still strong among 9+ year olds, we have work to do introducing BIONICLE to the 6-8 year olds who will keep the franchise going into the future. That is something Scholastic will be helping with, which I will tell you about later on.
On the plus side, when kids were asked the top 10 franchises they would like to get a toy from, only three of their 2006 choices were still on the list in 2007, and BIONICLE was one of the three.
So now we focus on these critical next three weeks, as we go into the Christmas toy-buying season, and then we get ready to take that momentum into 2008 and make it another great year!
Greg
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