Hasbro Brand Panel - 3pm CDT Options

[Esser-Z]

Besides, what's the big deal if a parent accidentally buys the wrong one?

The problem isn't that parents can't tell them apart so they buy the wrong one.

The problem is that parents can't tell them apart so they buy one and then never buy any of the others because they're 100% confident their kid already has the gray and gold dinosaur.

No, the problem is you conveniently left out the rest of the paragraph you quoted, especially the very next sentence:

....The kid will know the difference instantly. That's what reciepts are for! Just return it for the right one. And by-and-large, likely the only time that a parent/adult would be toy shopping for a kid without said kid being with them, would be at X-Mas or for their birthday, or any similar special occasion.

Mommy comes home and says "Here, Billy. This is the one you wanted right?"
"No, Mom, that's Slag! I already have him, see. I need to get Snarl, the stegosaurus."
"Ok, well we'll go back tomorrow and see if they have the right one. ok?"

It's not as if said parent is not going to try and get their kid the right toy. You make it seem as if people will go and buy only one figure, and the kid be dammed if he already has it, or it's not the right one.
This is why stores have return policies in the first place.

I dunno, if I was the parent, I'd probably be like, 'I'm sorry, I'll get the right one next time." And then next time would just be the next time I got them a toy, which could be whenever. I wouldn't go back to swap.

I would. In fact, I remember a couple times as a kid when I got a toy I already had and my parents took me to the store to exchange it.

[Database]

Besides, what's the big deal if a parent accidentally buys the wrong one?

The problem isn't that parents can't tell them apart so they buy the wrong one.

The problem is that parents can't tell them apart so they buy one and then never buy any of the others because they're 100% confident their kid already has the gray and gold dinosaur.

No, the problem is you conveniently left out the rest of the paragraph you quoted, especially the very next sentence:

....The kid will know the difference instantly. That's what reciepts are for! Just return it for the right one. And by-and-large, likely the only time that a parent/adult would be toy shopping for a kid without said kid being with them, would be at X-Mas or for their birthday, or any similar special occasion.

Mommy comes home and says "Here, Billy. This is the one you wanted right?"
"No, Mom, that's Slag! I already have him, see. I need to get Snarl, the stegosaurus."
"Ok, well we'll go back tomorrow and see if they have the right one. ok?"

It's not as if said parent is not going to try and get their kid the right toy. You make it seem as if people will go and buy only one figure, and the kid be dammed if he already has it, or it's not the right one.
This is why stores have return policies in the first place.

I dunno, if I was the parent, I'd probably be like, 'I'm sorry, I'll get the right one next time." And then next time would just be the next time I got them a toy, which could be whenever. I wouldn't go back to swap.

I would. In fact, I remember a couple times as a kid when I got a toy I already had and my parents took me to the store to exchange it.

Same here, If fact I usually got asked "Do you have this one already?" or "Hopefully you don't have this one" when ever I my mom bought one for me, and always kept the receipt if I did.

[Daytonus]

I'd probably feel bad about a duplicate. Wrong toy though? "Oh, you don't want it? We can give it to your sister."

[Shockwave 75]

I'd probably feel bad about a duplicate. Wrong toy though? "Oh, you don't want it? We can give it to your sister."

I see what you're saying, and I partially agree. If a kid is given a toy as a gift they should be grateful no matter what it is, but the idea is still valid. If a kid got a toy he did want/like they caould always return it for exchange.

[Daytonus]

But to return to the point, I'm saying that a marketing department is going to want to lower the bar for differentiation as much as possible. The reasons for doing so are not necessarily "the lowest common denominator" like quite a few folks in this thread seem to be insinuating, but simply that the average parent probably doesn't care quite that much.

As a kid, I just got whatever Transformers my mom could find--I didn't get specific figures until I started buying them myself.

[▲ndrusi]

Besides, what's the big deal if a parent accidentally buys the wrong one?

The problem isn't that parents can't tell them apart so they buy the wrong one.

The problem is that parents can't tell them apart so they buy one and then never buy any of the others because they're 100% confident their kid already has the gray and gold dinosaur.

No, the problem is you conveniently left out the rest of the paragraph you quoted, especially the very next sentence:

....The kid will know the difference instantly. That's what reciepts are for! Just return it for the right one. And by-and-large, likely the only time that a parent/adult would be toy shopping for a kid without said kid being with them, would be at X-Mas or for their birthday, or any similar special occasion.

Mommy comes home and says "Here, Billy. This is the one you wanted right?"
"No, Mom, that's Slag! I already have him, see. I need to get Snarl, the stegosaurus."
"Ok, well we'll go back tomorrow and see if they have the right one. ok?"

It's not as if said parent is not going to try and get their kid the right toy. You make it seem as if people will go and buy only one figure, and the kid be dammed if he already has it, or it's not the right one.
This is why stores have return policies in the first place.

Did... did you read my post before posting your reply?

Did you read it at all?

The thing you are assuring me will not be a problem is the thing I said was not the problem.

The thing I said was a problem, you have completely ignored.

Seriously, did you read what I said before you argued with it?

[Shockwave 75]

Yeah, I did. And it's completely negated by the very next sentence in my post.

Let the parents be 100% positive that they're buying the right one. Their kids will instantly let them know if they've bought the wrong one. Their kids will likely have let them know that there are in fact 5 different Dinobots before they even went shopping!

And, it occurs to me today, something that seems to have been neglected; this "parent problem" was really only viable 15 - 20 years ago when TF's were basically new.
I'll admit that back in the day my parents probably couldn't point out Blitzwing from Bumblebee, but they hadn't been educated on the differences either.
Today's kids likely have parents who grew up with Transformers. Even the ones who haven't really given a second thought to TF's since they hit puberty will not be 100% clueless when they're in that toy aisle. And, especially if they are of the G1 era, they will likely recognise many, if not most of the TF names that are currently in rotation. They may look different than the way they did when they were kids, but I'm sure the basic look and colour schemes of the Dinobots would seriously jog their memories.

This post has been edited by Shockwave 75: May 6 2012, 09:18 AM

[Walky]

They may look different than the way they did when they were kids, but I'm sure the basic look and colour schemes of the Dinobots would seriously jog their memories.

ahahahaha

[CORVUS]

I fear I must echo Walky's laughter, and add in a hearty "Yeah, right".

[▲ndrusi]

Yeah, I did. And it's completely negated by the very next sentence in my post.

Let the parents be 100% positive that they're buying the right one. Their kids will instantly let them know if they've bought the wrong one. Their kids will likely have let them know that there are in fact 5 different Dinobots before they even went shopping!

"...but it looks like they still only have this one here." Not completely negated.

Hell, only finally directly addressed now, rather than in the previous post, and even now I almost missed it because you tucked the relevance into a seeming afterthought. Don't expect me to connect the dots when you haven't actually provided the dots.

[Smitty]

Mommy comes home and says "Here, Billy. This is the one you wanted right?"
"No, Mom, that's Slag! I already have him, see. I need to get Snarl, the stegosaurus."
"Ok, well we'll go back tomorrow and see if they have the right one. ok?"

It's not as if said parent is not going to try and get their kid the right toy. You make it seem as if people will go and buy only one figure, and the kid be dammed if he already has it, or it's not the right one.
This is why stores have return policies in the first place.

My mother would have never done this. She would either told me "No you already have that one", or just taken me to the store and let me pick out the one I wanted then questioned if I already had that one if it look familiar to her.

[Daytonus]

You're acting as if parenting is on some evolutionary scale where each generation is better than the last at picking out their children's toys.

[Kalidor]

I guess I should just be happy that my parents weren't idiots and could comprehend the words I had written on my Christmas list or trusted me enough when they said "pick out the one you want" that I myself wasn't an idiot and wouldn't buy I toy I already owned.

[Walky]

All my Christmas toys were bought by my grandparents. Which is good, because grandparents really do have nothing else in their lives other than trying to comprehend some 8-year-old's scrawlings. Parents, not so much.

[Shockwave 75]

You're acting as if parenting is on some evolutionary scale where each generation is better than the last at picking out their children's toys.

Why shouldn't they be? Anybody who is now a parent and had grown up in the "toy culture" of the 80's, and pays any kind of attention to the things that interest their kids (as any good parent should), should have some kind of toy acumen.

My parents (both born in the 50's) grew up before there really were all kinds of toys like we had in the 80's. There the 12 inch Joes, Barbies (and the like), and then lots of tin/wooden toys. The action figure as we know it really didn't exist, and the very idea of a huge store brimming with toys was a completely foreign concept.
This is the only reason I got a Grapple when I was a kid. I didn't want Grappel! But the person who bought it for me really didn't see the difference between one car-that-turns-into-a-robot and another. This is also likely why many of us got GoBots rather than TF's as gifts.

But now that we who were born in the mid/late 70's and on are becoming parents, we grew up with a wide plethora of different toy options. The only parents of this generation who are totally ignorant of the differences between one toy and another are either willfully so, or are of the mind-set "I didn't have all this stuff growing up so why does my kid need it?".

I guess I should just be happy that my parents weren't idiots and could comprehend the words I had written on my Christmas list or trusted me enough when they said "pick out the one you want" that I myself wasn't an idiot and wouldn't buy I toy I already owned.

This!

And now-a-days kids don't just have to write a list of the toys they want. These computer-age kids can make a list with actual pictures of the toys! So the only possible reason for the toy-buyer to get the wrong thing are either horrible inbreeding, or the ONE store they went to didn't have anything on the list and they didn't want to leave empty handed.

My point still stands. If Hasbro would put the DB's in the show, and make them cool; rather than just another bunch of non-show toys on the shelf, the kids will want them.

[NICKSAUR]

My parents weren't stupid about things back then, and they ran around all sorts of places to get me stuff.

I'm just mystified that someone at the corporate level thinks kids won't want to have an army of robot dinosaurs.

[Fishbug]

Do kids even like dinosaurs anymore? They're at nowhere near the level of toy saturation that they were back in the 80's and 90's. EVERY toyline back in those days found a way to work dinosaurs into it. Now? Kids care more about their fake-dino Whatevermons and Bakumans.

[Smitty]

You're acting as if parenting is on some evolutionary scale where each generation is better than the last at picking out their children's toys.

With today's nostalgia based toy lines it is. I look down a Wal-Mart toy section and I see Thundercats, Transformers, Marvel Heroes, and G.I. Joe just to name a few. Even for some one that is not as into toys as I am it's not hard to know who their kid wants when he says "I want Panthro".

[NICKSAUR]

Do kids even like dinosaurs anymore? They're at nowhere near the level of toy saturation that they were back in the 80's and 90's. EVERY toyline back in those days found a way to work dinosaurs into it. Now? Kids care more about their fake-dino Whatevermons and Bakumans.

Oh they do. IF there was more saturation there would be even more dinosaur fans. There's this over brimming idea that they're ridiculous, I guess? I have no idea why dinosaurs have been backed off of, but kids do like em.

[Database]

My parents weren't stupid about things back then, and they ran around all sorts of places to get me stuff.

My mom and Grandmom would go to great lenths to get me what I wanted. One of my mom's favorite stories is her trying to find the Ghostbuster Firehouse, becuase I had apparently told her "It's okay if you can't find it, Santa will bring me one!" which sent her into a big panic. She had all her co-workers even look for if one came in to tell her immediately. She did eventually find one. She may not have known what everything was, but if I told her I wanted something for birthday or christmas; she did her damnedest to get me it.

Parent's aren't totally ignorant, unless they just really don't care that much about their kids. Kids aren't stupid either. If a kid lets them know what they want, a parent will try to get it, they will reach out to friends and family members letting them know "hey this is what my child wants, could you help me find it?". I've seen this with every branch of my family (Not a small family by any means) and my friend's families as well growing up. Very few kids will get everything, but a smart attentive parent will know their kids know what they have and don't have and will pay attention to a list a child gives them or when they point out stuff in the store.