A Taylor
05-26-2005, 09:31 AM
This month's Assembly Line column is more opinion than news, and I'd like your comments to publish next month.
Are US kit manufacturers clueless? How can the hobby be promoted to gain a more broad appeal? Obviously, I prefer you buy Toy Shop, but here's part of the text you'll find in the latest issue. Let me know your ideas.
Thanks,
Anthony Taylor
No doubt many readers have noticed the amount of genre related styrene model kits released by American companies has dwindled in the past several years. The model building hobby reached it’s zenith in the 1960’s and has been struggling to maintain enthusiasts since the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. This month, I’d like to examine some reasons for this, as well as ideas for boosting the hobby’s profile in this country and worldwide.
Ask any marketing executive from an American plastic model manufacturing company (and I have on several occasions) why model kits no longer sell well to the general public and they’ll tell you that leisure time activity alternatives have stolen market share from their products. Most will begin by citing video games as the biggest culprit; kids simply no longer wish to build model kits, they’d rather play the latest Playstation or X-Box game. Barring that, action figures and die cast companies now offer pre-finished products that are as nice as a finished model kit at about the same price - but without all the manual labor of assembly.
True, these competitors were not around in the 1960’s heyday of the model building hobby. Back then, model kits could be found at drug stores, Five and Dime Stores, toy shops, hobby stores... just about anywhere you looked. Action figures didn’t come along until G.I. Joe, around 1964, and video games even later - the first home system by Atari was released in the mid 1970’s.
I have a different theory on why the hobby has fallen into such a sad state; American hobby manufacturers seem to have no idea how to market their products. They continue to run their businesses as if the world hadn’t changed at all in the past 45 years. The reason that video games and action figures sell better than models is because the companies making them market them better. If Americans can be enticed to purchase Hula Hoops, Pet Rocks, Rubik’s Cubes, and singing fish plaques, they can be enticed to buy and build model kits again.
I believe it's hard to pin low model sales on competition from video games when the same distractions are available in Japan (they practically perfected the video game market) and yet building models is a hobby practiced by many thousands of adults and children of both genders in that country. The Japanese hobby market is mighty, and plastic kits (as well as resin and vinyl; the Japanese don't discriminate like Americans do) play a very large part in overall sales. According to one industry insider I spoke with, the Japanese manufacturer Tamiya was producing over 10,000,000 model kits per month in recent years, with about ninety percent of the kits being sold domestically in that country. His thoughts on why kit sales are so much higher in Japan? Many people don’t have lawns to care for because of the population explosion in that country - living space is at a premium and many homes have no greenscapes. That allows them more free time than Americans to pursue hobbies.
Well. That’s certainly something to ponder.
I contend that the larger market share for plastic kits is because Japanese manufacturers listen to what customers ask for and produce those kits. They let customers know the kits will be available months ahead of release and take higher pre-orders in advance of production. The Japanese manufacturers adapt to their market instead of expecting the market to adapt to them.
The American comic book market has etched an eerie parallel to plastic model kits. Comics hit their peak of popularity around the same time as model kits, in the 1960’s. Like models, their sales have declined steadily since that time, with the exception of a few collector’s market driven “bubbles” in the 1980’s and ‘90’s. Both kit manufacturers and comics publishers tried to spice the market up by trying new things - variant covers, pre-painted kits, etc. Neither market cared for the offered changes, and sales continued to decline.
American comics are now regularly being outsold on all fronts by imported Japanese comics, also known as “manga”.
Tokyopop knows how to sell comics. They are an American company that translates and publishes Japanese graphic novels for sale in book stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble. Even Wal Mart sells the books online. They make hundreds of millions of dollars every year selling manga to the AMERICAN public. Why? They are shrewd marketers. Tokyopop adapted to a changing market and triumphed over the naysayers who told them it wouldn’t work. This year, they are beginning a line of original graphic novels by American creators, to be marketed along with their imported titles. DC and Marvel have jumped on the bandwagon, but they are very late in doing so - and are having less success because of this.
To their credit, the US comic publishers are starting an advocacy group similar to the Beef Council(It's what's for dinner) or Dairy Council (Got Milk?). This entity is the International Comic Arts Association, and for more information on their programs, see their website at www.comicarts.org. By pooling their resources, American comic book publishers may possibly pull some amount of market share back - if they are willing to change how they do things.
Surely there must be a similar group for plastic model kit manufacturers, right? Not as far as I can tell. I could find no organization that exists for the sole purpose of promoting the plastic model hobby to the general public - if they do exist, they seem to be hiding and not making much progress. The closest thing I could find was the International Model-Hobby Manufacturers Association, which does not even appear to have a website. Perhaps they’re too busy tending their lawns to create one.
I’d like to propose to any U.S. plastic model manufacturers that may be reading this column the formation of an entity to seriously promote the hobby, and advocate it to the public. In my opinion, this should be an international organization so that American manufacturers can share resources with Japanese and other foreign companies - financial as well as intellectual. Every company who makes or markets plastic hobby kits or the tools and accessories to assemble them is invited to join together to present the hobby in a positive light to the world. The organization would promote an exchange of ideas among manufacturers and model builders and provide materials and programs to bring plastic model building forward in the public eye. The International Model-Hobby Manufacturers Association doesn’t seem to be getting the job done.
In the 1960’s, hobby companies advertised in comic books because kids read them. If kids are now buying video games instead, then why not license games for model kits? For instance, if players of the popular game Halo found a color advertisement for Halo inspired model kits in the game packaging, might they not be interested in purchasing them? This is the sort of thinking that kit companies should come together to embrace. It’s nothing new in the world of marketing, it’s just new to them.
I’m no crusader, but neither am I a mere casual observer. It looks to me as though there may be no more U.S. based plastic model manufacturers within the next ten years unless someone does some radical “outside the box” thinking very soon. I volunteer to sit on the advisory board of any independent group formed to promote the hobby and offer my thoughts on how to make plastic model building the next home improvement, custom motorcycle building, or championship poker craze. You may say these are merely fads, but there were core enthusiasts for these activities before the general public jumped aboard, and there will be more that remain when the shine has faded from them. Create a new fad every ten or fifteen years and watch the effects on sales.
Are US kit manufacturers clueless? How can the hobby be promoted to gain a more broad appeal? Obviously, I prefer you buy Toy Shop, but here's part of the text you'll find in the latest issue. Let me know your ideas.
Thanks,
Anthony Taylor
No doubt many readers have noticed the amount of genre related styrene model kits released by American companies has dwindled in the past several years. The model building hobby reached it’s zenith in the 1960’s and has been struggling to maintain enthusiasts since the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. This month, I’d like to examine some reasons for this, as well as ideas for boosting the hobby’s profile in this country and worldwide.
Ask any marketing executive from an American plastic model manufacturing company (and I have on several occasions) why model kits no longer sell well to the general public and they’ll tell you that leisure time activity alternatives have stolen market share from their products. Most will begin by citing video games as the biggest culprit; kids simply no longer wish to build model kits, they’d rather play the latest Playstation or X-Box game. Barring that, action figures and die cast companies now offer pre-finished products that are as nice as a finished model kit at about the same price - but without all the manual labor of assembly.
True, these competitors were not around in the 1960’s heyday of the model building hobby. Back then, model kits could be found at drug stores, Five and Dime Stores, toy shops, hobby stores... just about anywhere you looked. Action figures didn’t come along until G.I. Joe, around 1964, and video games even later - the first home system by Atari was released in the mid 1970’s.
I have a different theory on why the hobby has fallen into such a sad state; American hobby manufacturers seem to have no idea how to market their products. They continue to run their businesses as if the world hadn’t changed at all in the past 45 years. The reason that video games and action figures sell better than models is because the companies making them market them better. If Americans can be enticed to purchase Hula Hoops, Pet Rocks, Rubik’s Cubes, and singing fish plaques, they can be enticed to buy and build model kits again.
I believe it's hard to pin low model sales on competition from video games when the same distractions are available in Japan (they practically perfected the video game market) and yet building models is a hobby practiced by many thousands of adults and children of both genders in that country. The Japanese hobby market is mighty, and plastic kits (as well as resin and vinyl; the Japanese don't discriminate like Americans do) play a very large part in overall sales. According to one industry insider I spoke with, the Japanese manufacturer Tamiya was producing over 10,000,000 model kits per month in recent years, with about ninety percent of the kits being sold domestically in that country. His thoughts on why kit sales are so much higher in Japan? Many people don’t have lawns to care for because of the population explosion in that country - living space is at a premium and many homes have no greenscapes. That allows them more free time than Americans to pursue hobbies.
Well. That’s certainly something to ponder.
I contend that the larger market share for plastic kits is because Japanese manufacturers listen to what customers ask for and produce those kits. They let customers know the kits will be available months ahead of release and take higher pre-orders in advance of production. The Japanese manufacturers adapt to their market instead of expecting the market to adapt to them.
The American comic book market has etched an eerie parallel to plastic model kits. Comics hit their peak of popularity around the same time as model kits, in the 1960’s. Like models, their sales have declined steadily since that time, with the exception of a few collector’s market driven “bubbles” in the 1980’s and ‘90’s. Both kit manufacturers and comics publishers tried to spice the market up by trying new things - variant covers, pre-painted kits, etc. Neither market cared for the offered changes, and sales continued to decline.
American comics are now regularly being outsold on all fronts by imported Japanese comics, also known as “manga”.
Tokyopop knows how to sell comics. They are an American company that translates and publishes Japanese graphic novels for sale in book stores like Borders and Barnes and Noble. Even Wal Mart sells the books online. They make hundreds of millions of dollars every year selling manga to the AMERICAN public. Why? They are shrewd marketers. Tokyopop adapted to a changing market and triumphed over the naysayers who told them it wouldn’t work. This year, they are beginning a line of original graphic novels by American creators, to be marketed along with their imported titles. DC and Marvel have jumped on the bandwagon, but they are very late in doing so - and are having less success because of this.
To their credit, the US comic publishers are starting an advocacy group similar to the Beef Council(It's what's for dinner) or Dairy Council (Got Milk?). This entity is the International Comic Arts Association, and for more information on their programs, see their website at www.comicarts.org. By pooling their resources, American comic book publishers may possibly pull some amount of market share back - if they are willing to change how they do things.
Surely there must be a similar group for plastic model kit manufacturers, right? Not as far as I can tell. I could find no organization that exists for the sole purpose of promoting the plastic model hobby to the general public - if they do exist, they seem to be hiding and not making much progress. The closest thing I could find was the International Model-Hobby Manufacturers Association, which does not even appear to have a website. Perhaps they’re too busy tending their lawns to create one.
I’d like to propose to any U.S. plastic model manufacturers that may be reading this column the formation of an entity to seriously promote the hobby, and advocate it to the public. In my opinion, this should be an international organization so that American manufacturers can share resources with Japanese and other foreign companies - financial as well as intellectual. Every company who makes or markets plastic hobby kits or the tools and accessories to assemble them is invited to join together to present the hobby in a positive light to the world. The organization would promote an exchange of ideas among manufacturers and model builders and provide materials and programs to bring plastic model building forward in the public eye. The International Model-Hobby Manufacturers Association doesn’t seem to be getting the job done.
In the 1960’s, hobby companies advertised in comic books because kids read them. If kids are now buying video games instead, then why not license games for model kits? For instance, if players of the popular game Halo found a color advertisement for Halo inspired model kits in the game packaging, might they not be interested in purchasing them? This is the sort of thinking that kit companies should come together to embrace. It’s nothing new in the world of marketing, it’s just new to them.
I’m no crusader, but neither am I a mere casual observer. It looks to me as though there may be no more U.S. based plastic model manufacturers within the next ten years unless someone does some radical “outside the box” thinking very soon. I volunteer to sit on the advisory board of any independent group formed to promote the hobby and offer my thoughts on how to make plastic model building the next home improvement, custom motorcycle building, or championship poker craze. You may say these are merely fads, but there were core enthusiasts for these activities before the general public jumped aboard, and there will be more that remain when the shine has faded from them. Create a new fad every ten or fifteen years and watch the effects on sales.