Mattel Creations
Toy World spoke to Kate Schlomann, Vice President and General Manager of Thomas & Friends about how the brand is pivoting its content to increase awareness and offer new opportunities across a range of licensing catagories. We hear Thomas & Friends content is changing in 2018, what are you able to tell us? All will be revealed at our special World Premiere event at MIPJUNIOR but we have many exciting changes coming to Thomas & Friends in 2018. Content is at the heart of our story-telling and we are pivoting our content to make it more inclusive, meaningful, entertaining and global – whilst ensuring all the favorite characters and storylines that fans around the world love remain at the heart of the action. How will this manifest itself? Are you able to share any specifics? This is an exciting evolution for the content. The show will have a new format, more contemporary feel and added humour, which will offer an increased global appeal to both pre-school boys and girls. For the first time ever, we will see iconic train engine Thomas traveling farther than ever before, taking kids on a journey of wonder and curiosity as he adventures around the world to experience new countries and animals, learn about other cultures and, of course, make new international friends along the way. In addition to this, our latest research shows that more girls are watching the show than ever and we want to celebrate that, so watch this space as there will be new female characters joining. Why the format change? Did you use market research for the changes? Thomas & Friends is a beloved brand and well-known show around the world and to ensure it’s as relatable and relevant as possible and to keep it competitive in the children’s TV market, we feel it is important to make some changes to the content. The starting point for us was carrying out deep-dive research with our audience across key territories including US, UK, Germany and China. This process was a valuable tool and allowed us to gain insights about the content to better understand how each element on screen translated to both younger and older viewers.
We gathered all the feedback from these sessions, including many suggestions and ideas from the children themselves. We then looked at ways we could push the boundaries of storytelling, new music and new characters, with one quote from a child at the research particularly striking a chord with us when he said “Thomas is a train but he never really goes anywhere”. This definitive point informed one of the biggest changes in the new series, which is that Thomas will now take us with him on his adventures around the globe as he visits many countries to experience the different cultures and animals that the world has to offer. Additionally, Thomas will engage more closely with the audience through speaking directly to the camera and narrating the story himself for the first time in the show’s history. How does the change of content affect the brand? The brand is currently undergoing an evolution to remain relevant for the next generation of parents and kids by opening up the world of Thomas & Friends to be more inclusive, meaningful and global, whilst remaining light-hearted and humorous, so kids can discover the world around them with a trusted friend. The brand will roll out a new brand positioning campaign next year to reflect the evolution, and the change in itself offers the franchise many more opportunities. It’s an exciting time to be part of team Thomas. Tell us more about that, where do you see the opportunity for the toy and franchise? With the refreshed new content, we are exploring so many more new themes which literately opens up the world of consumer product live events, apps, games, etc. as well as other extensions of the franchise. This will also give us exciting new toy drivers which will be revealed next year. We are extremely lucky to have so many good licensee partners for Thomas & Friends and BLE is a perfect opportunity to share these new exciting changes coming. How do you feel the pre-school environment has changed in recent years and how does it affect Thomas & Friends? It has got increasingly competitive with many new entries in recent years seeing rapid growth, however Thomas & Friends is a proven and trusted 72-year-old evergreen brand which has stood the test of time and enjoys its rightful place as being one of the top pre-school toy brands in several markets. The brand is also growing in popularity in many new markets such as China.
Mattel Supplement
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