Idea To Increase Castle Grayskull Preorders / MOTUC Sales...

[Tallstar]

Now that the MOTU iPhone/iPad game is going Top 10 in a few countries, this is giving the overall property major visibility. This is our chance to spread the word about MOTUC/the preorder for Castle Grayskull.

Could someone please leave a review in the comments on iTunes that also mentions Mattycollector, MOTUC and the preorder? Then all of us can click "Yes this review was helpful" thereby making it a top comment.

[Kowl]

Certainly a suggestion worth thinking about... but my main question is still the same.
Do some fans honestly believe that someone who hasnt heard of MOTUC by this point (come on, 4 years) will have any interest in dropping 275-300 (after s&h) on a playset?
If someone "likes He-Man or remembers He-Man from their childhood, they aren't the intended audience here. If they were the toy buying type, then they would already be in the game most likely.
The "casual fan" we are needing to go after is the "cherry picker."

[hadley]

I'm worried about reviews getting hit for spam if they include links to get the figures...

Mattel should have had this company put a MattyCollector.com logo on the loading screen along with the big Mattel logo.

[Tallstar]

Certainly a suggestion worth thinking about... but my main question is still the same.
Do some fans honestly believe that someone who hasnt heard of MOTUC by this point (come on, 4 years) will have any interest in dropping 275-300 (after s&h) on a playset?
If someone "likes He-Man or remembers He-Man from their childhood, they aren't the intended audience here. If they were the toy buying type, then they would already be in the game most likely.
The "casual fan" we are needing to go after is the "cherry picker."

Kids who end up buying this app may decide they want some figures and a castle to go along with their new favorite game and may ask someone (i.e. parents) to buy it for them.

I'm worried about reviews getting hit for spam if they include links to get the figures...

Mattel should have had this company put a MattyCollector.com logo on the loading screen along with the big Mattel logo.

I don't think most people will care, tbh.

For those who want to participate, look for this comment under most recent and click "Yes". I think he approached it in a great way:

"What a fun game! Between this, mattycollector.com and the Castle Grayskull preorder...it's a fantastic time to be a MotU fan!"

[Wulff]

Kids who end up buying this app may decide they want some figures and a castle to go along with their new favorite game and may ask someone (i.e. parents) to buy it for them.

No parent would suddenly drop hundreds of dollars on a playset because their kid plays a mediorcre-to-poor 99-cent cellphone game.

[Mr. Prozac]

No parent would suddenly drop hundreds of dollars on a playset because their kid plays a mediorcre-to-poor 99-cent cellphone game.

Rich ones might...

[TJRules]

If someone "likes He-Man or remembers He-Man from their childhood, they aren't the intended audience here. If they were the toy buying type, then they would already be in the game most likely. The "casual fan" we are needing to go after is the "cherry picker."

Weren't subscribers "cherry pickers" at some point in time? I know people that are cherry pickers now that haven't even heard of the line until this year. At some point, that person that "likes He-Man or remembers He-Man from their childhood" becomes a subscriber eventually. Not ALL the time, but in most cases. Baby steps, Bob. CG is a perfect way to get into the line, imo. It's half the commitment of a sub and you have an ENTIRE YEAR to save!!!!!!

[VaultsofGrayskull]

It's impossible to estimate what proportion of childhood MOTU fans actually know about MOTUC, even now, four years in. Mattel never bothered to e-mail the webmasters of the fan sites back then, and still haven't. Since the start of the line they have pretty much benefitted from fans doing all of their promotional work for them.

I'm convinced that the castle will go ahead anyway, so whether a reaching out to new customers is necessary is a debatable point.

[Clawful Ofit]

I'm one of those who only found out about the line in January. Die hard when I was young, thrilled when 200x came along...& lost intrest in 75 He-Men & never who I needed. Haven't bought a toy or collectable since then. He-Man died. Then this happened...

Netflix + Amazon + Youtube + Pixel Dan + He-Man.org + Mattycollector = A broke, but very happy Dave.

So you never know who will rediscover their love for the brand & come home, I did. I say get the word out how you can, within reason. If not for watching a few episodes for nostalgia sake. Then checking Amazon for the DVDs & getting a random "you may be interested in..." I probably still wouldn't know about the line.

[Madison Carter]

It's impossible to estimate what proportion of childhood MOTU fans actually know about MOTUC, even now, four years in.

Huge fan of the originals, all my life and long after their day came and went. Only found out about MOTUC about a year, year and a half ago and as obsessed with the line as I've since become, only actually was capable of getting figures a couple of months ago. And yes, a lot of it had to do with stumbling across some Pixel-Dan videos on YT. I have to figure there's more out there like me that are only now (or not yet) aware of it.

[Baena]

I think it's a great idea Tally! Any exposure is good exposure!

[braxsis364]

I think it's a great idea Tally! Any exposure is good exposure!

maybe some of us with you tube acounts can make some videos exspresing there love and desire for Grayskull to become a realty. on a slightly off topic note, I cant wait to see the last minute plea for pre orders.that alone should be worth the price,of our highly coveted Grayskull.nuff said fingers crossed I do hope to eventuly get one.

[Zombihamma-AI]

Seconded! Great idea! .....I also think Dan( castle greyskull man winner) should make a video of 'CGSM the bum' crying that he needs a place to live

[iron_pride]

I think it's a great idea Tally! Any exposure is good exposure!

Agreed! Expose away!

[JonWes]

No parent would suddenly drop hundreds of dollars on a playset because their kid plays a mediorcre-to-poor 99-cent cellphone game.

Thankfully the He-man game is a good 99-cent cellphone game!

[Alexx]

I say we have it automatically preorder the castle for you when you beat the game! It'll be like: "Congratulations! You've now preordered Castle Grayskull! Hope you've got the money ready for next year YUKYUKYUK" And then it make a rimshot noise and adds "...no seriously, it's 250 bucks; make sure you have it. WE NEED THIS TO HAPPEN."

As I always say: If it's worth doing, it's worth doing in an underhanded and sneaky way.

*AHEM* But anyway: Good idea! I'll find and click the comment to rate it up. Anything helps, honestly. I mean a friend of mine knows about this line and has a few of them, but he doesn't follow it and had no idea the Castle preorder existed until I told him, to which he responded with interest. He hasn't preordered yet, but the interest is there, so I think this is a legit idea to grab the folks that maybe just bought Skelly, He-Man and a few favorites but otherwise didn't keep track of the line.

[DrRampageo]

I say we have it automatically preorder the castle for you when you beat the game! It'll be like: "Congratulations! You've now preordered Castle Grayskull! Hope you've got the money ready for next year YUKYUKYUK" And then it make a rimshot noise and adds "...no seriously, it's 250 bucks; make sure you have it. WE NEED THIS TO HAPPEN."

As I always say: If it's worth doing, it's worth doing in an underhanded and sneaky way.

[iron_pride]

Yeah it's really too bad they don't have an ad budget to get commercials on tv like they did in vintage days.

[seth-man]

Yeah it's really too bad they don't have an ad budget to get commercials on tv like they did in vintage days.

Honestly Scott stinks as a marketing manager. It dosen't take much to promote things these days with rapid social media. Anyone can make a YouTube Video. I think by default Pixel Dan has done 10 fold the promotion Scott has done just with his reveiews on YouTube. I never been to a comic con but Scott should be hitting it much harder then a mattypolooza panel he and his staff should be swarming the floors with 10% off Mattycollector.com Flyers.

But really...Matty is just not honest with they're limited edition numbers, sales numbers, or subscription numbers. I'm sure Castle Grayskull will go through. You just wont see that Thermometer hit the arrow till the 11th hour of the deadline....Cause Toy Guru's and Matty's strongest sales tactic is Fear! So go ahead...order that 2nd Castle Grayskull to leave in the box

[Kowl]

Kids who end up buying this app may decide they want some figures and a castle to go along with their new favorite game and may ask someone (i.e. parents) to buy it for them.

Ummm... No. The game costs 99 cents. We don't even know who the customer base is at this point. It might not even be children. It might just be us.
Also, Kid's interests change mightly quickly these days. Think of how many things you saw in a commercial that you had to have, but never actually got.
All of the parents I know would NEVER commit to buy their child something that costs 250 dollars that doesn't come out for an entire year. Grayskull would show up and the kid would say "He-Man who?". Also, today's generation is really focused on electronics and technology. We already knew that action figures sales on a whole are dramatically down in the kids demografic.

Weren't subscribers "cherry pickers" at some point in time? I know people that are cherry pickers now that haven't even heard of the line until this year. At some point, that person that "likes He-Man or remembers He-Man from their childhood" becomes a subscriber eventually. Not ALL the time, but in most cases. Baby steps, Bob. CG is a perfect way to get into the line, imo. It's half the commitment of a sub and you have an ENTIRE YEAR to save!!!!!!

I love all my fellow He-Fans, but sometimes we are a bit too fanatic and don't realize the bubble in which we exist.
It can be argued that the majority of males (and maybe even every females) born between the years of 1971ish and 1985ish have some sort of childhood memory of He-Man and MOTU. A good majority of them may have also played with the toys as a child. Now fast forward, these people are all their early 30s to mid 40s now. How many of them do you actually believe have an interest in collecting toys? As it has been brought up numerous times before, we are a niche collector base. We love MOTU and we happen to enjoy buying toys as adults. You can't realistically expect to convince adult males that have no interest in toys to start buying toys just because they enjoyed He-Man as a child. This type of "casual fan" would certainly go see a MOTU movie (and Transformers/GI Joe has proven), but they aren't gonna magically turn into a toy collector.

Honestly Scott stinks as a marketing manager. It dosen't take much to promote things these days with rapid social media. Anyone can make a YouTube Video. I think by default Pixel Dan has done 10 fold the promotion Scott has done just with his reveiews on YouTube.

On the contrary, Scott isn't too bad at this. Why waste corporate money when all of us will do the advertising for them for free? It's called "Word of Mouth." Also, the deals that Mattel set up with Pixel Pan and the Fwoosh are genius. For the low cost of a few production samples each month, they get a bunch of free advertising.

[Skeeter]

Hah! Guess you don't have kids.

[Haradrel]

Old Castle Grayskull was mentioned by Jon M. Chu who is set to direct the new Masters movie.
"We all grew up with Masters, played with the toys… I had a Castle Grayskull, played with the toys, I had a Battle Cat."

Would be neat if they somehow managed to play off that to boost sales.

Interview here for those interested: http://geek-news.mtv.com/2012/10/26/...-the-universe/

[Dr Kain]

Tell Bandai to not reveal anymore Figuarts and I might have money to get Grayskull.