Interview with Janice Varney-Hamlin, Former Mattel Director of Worldwide Marketing Fashion Dolls
Interview with Janice Varney-Hamlin
By Danielle Gelehrter
March 29, 2015
Over the years, we’ve heard from many of the people behind the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe toyline. We’ve also heard from many of the people who worked on the He-Man and She-Ra cartoons, comics, and movie, but we’ve very rarely heard from the major forces responsible for the Princess of Power toyline. Fortunately for She-Ra and He-Man fans, Janice Varney-Hamlin graciously agreed to the following interview. Janice is a veteran Senior marketing, brand and business development executive. She is the executive Vice President of Varney Consulting and has worked as a Franchise Manager and Developer for the Disney ABC Television Group, Vice President of Retail Development and Product Development at Time-Warner, and of course as Director of Worldwide Marketing – Fashion Dolls for Mattel. Janice was one of the main masterminds behind the Princess of Power toyline during her tenure at Mattel in the 1980s.
What was your position at Mattel?
My position at Mattel during this time frame was Director of Worldwide Marketing Fashion Dolls. I was responsible for Barbie and other fashion doll categories.
Can you describe what your job entailed?
In my job I had worldwide P&L responsibility for Fashion Dolls, building brand plans, developing and implementing growth strategies based on consumer insights and marketing A&U. I was also responsible for advertising, promotion and PR across the brands. At that time, Mattel had a matrix management system so teams reported into their discipline managers and into the category manager, of which I was one. For example, engineers reported into VP of Engineering, but also supported the marketing category manager on category teams.
How were you involved in the Princess of Power brand, specifically?
I created the doll line, She-Ra, Princess of Power, developed the position, worked on every aspect of the program. It was based on the inspiration and hugely popular He-Man. The collection was born as a strategy in creating a flanker brand for Barbie. After looking at the fashion doll market, I noticed that when competitive fashion dolls entered the fashion doll arena the entire fashion doll category expanded. And when they left the category, Barbie business gobbled up those excess dollars. So flanker brands as they were called then, were constructed and introduced to grow the industry. Barbie sales had flattened out at the time, so introducing a competitive fashion doll line that we owned should expand the size of the entire category and allow the Barbie business to grow. In order to do that, the fashion doll line Mattel introduced had to address a play pattern upon which Barbie could not deliver…action adventure and of course with fashion and beauty. Another was family, mom with children, which the Heart Family addressed.
Initially, She-Ra design concepts started out in the Boys Products department, but She-Ra was later taken over by the Girls Products department. Can you talk about the changes that were implemented once Girls Products took over?
That is not exactly accurate. One of the first lines that I worked on at Mattel was a female fashion action line, but it did not get placement at retail so it was dropped. When we opted to reintroduce the idea, we decided to link the collection to the extremely successful line, He-Man, to give it credibility and get retail placement. The boys toy executive fought to have it in their line since we were leveraging their brand, but after the first look of the doll, no articulation, no hair, no fashion, not attractive at all, the collection was put back in the girls line. The line was not called She-Ra then, we renamed the female character, added hair, beautiful costumes and appropriate girl relatable features to make it a meaningful brand.
But, She-Ra definitely came from the girl’s category as we were looking at inventor concepts already. As a matter of fact, the boys category fought us all the way and was convinced that the ebbing of He-Man sales was directly linked to the introduction of She-Ra, Princess of Power.
So, She-Ra looked different and had a different name when the boys dept. worked on it. Do you recall what she was called then or what she looked like?
She was a 3 or 5 inch scale and battle worthy. I cannot remember what her name was though.
Can you recall the names of other people involved with She-Ra and what their involvement was?
Myself and Cathy Larsen were instrumental in breaking the product line and the category together. Eventually, after moving on to other businesses, other managers inherited it.
The She-Ra Princess of Power cartoon series from Filmation was very popular. How closely did Mattel work with Filmation on She-Ra?
Mattel approached HB to develop the She-Ra animated series. Mattel, Cathy, and myself, actually created the storylines for the books being published by then, Western Publishing. We wanted to mirror those stories in the television series. However, if we did not have an enemy more notorious in animation, She-Ra would not seem as powerful, so we followed Filmation’s lead on this element. Villains were led by Hordak, and Catra was the evil version of the female action leader and worked for Hordak. Catra was beautiful, but had the ability to scratch her (She-Ra).
Were there any characters you remember that didn’t make it into production in the toy line?
Yes, there were about 30 characters developed, but only those that tested well in consumer research were introduced.
I know it was 30 years ago, but do you recall any of the characters that “didn’t make it?”
I really can’t remember the ones who did not make it.
Do you have any funny or interesting memories about working on the brand?
Yes.
We decided that we wanted to do a live action traveling event for retails in which She-Ra would show up to battle Catra. I was interviewing some very beautiful models in my office at Mattel in El Segundo to play these roles. We asked them to get in costume and write some lines that we role as part of the play. So the real life Catra and She-Ra and several versions of them, were in and out of my office. Each time I opened my office door I would find five guys hanging out in the hallway or suspiciously walking by the office to check out the talent. Pretty funny.
We would sit in my office and come up with characters, names, and features inspired by Greek Mythology. Some of those were pretty fun to work on. You can find a list of the characters on Wikipedia.
Thank you so much to Janice for taking the time out of her very busy schedule to reminisce a bit about her vital impact on the Princess of Power brand!