Richard Dickson, president and chief operating officer, Mattel and Chris Down, chief design officer, Mattel discussed the process of collaborative toy making in the pop culture space while introducing their new Mattel Creations platform.
Down moderated the panel which saw appearances from Mattel designers and creatives from brands including Disney/Pixar, Universal Creative, Microsoft's Halo, WWE and Lucasfilm. During the panel, he highlighted the unique opportunities present in the Creations platform that is set to launch fully in September.
“It is a flexible platform that is designed to showcase some of the most interesting thinking that never even makes it to the mass market shelves of a Walmart, an Amazon or a Target that lives within our house and with our creative collaborators,” says Down. “[We work with] some of the most interesting and exciting partners that inspire us to do what we do that may not be interesting in a mass market sense but may be very exciting and interesting to the right collector or the right enthusiast or the right pop culture connoisseur. Mattel Creations really is the platform for that.”
Down and Dickson also delved into what went into creating Comic-Con exclusives for this year’s 100 percent virtual event. Products announced for Comic-Con@Home included new WWE figures, a “Toy Story” Pizza Planet toy, a Mega Construx “Halo” set and more exclusive collectables inspired by properties like “Jurassic Park” and “Star Wars.”
“Hot Wheels, Barbie, Fisher Price, Masters of the Universe, the list goes on,” says Dickson. “Our brands are literally canvases for pop culture conversations and conversations are somewhat about collaborations. Collaboration has always been a key to our success at Mattel. By offering our iconic brands as canvases for top artists, designers, musicians, creators, scientists, we have literally given our brands with these creators to create new ideas and new innovations that have created pop culture conversations that are part of the legendary history at Mattel.”
Fans can watch the full panel online.