Why Are there Fewer Merchandise-Driven Franchises, Recently?
The Blind Eternities forum
Posted on Aug. 23, 2020, 8:58 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
During the 1980's and 1990's, there were many animated television series that, while fairly entertaining in their own right, were part of larger franchises that focused primarily on selling toys and other merchandise, with some well-known examples being He-Man, Thundercats, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Street Sharks, and Extreme Dinosaurs. I enjoyed all of those series as a child, but, having re-watched some of them as an adult, I am now realizing that many of them were extremely corny and campy and also had very loose continuity with numerous plot holes and a severe lack of character development.
In the past several decades, merchandise-driven franchises have become far less prevalent; they still exist, but they are not as numerous as they were in decades past.
I certainly am not complaining about that, since I am glad that television series are now focusing on telling great stories, rather than selling merchandise, but I still wonder why merchandise-driven franchises are less numerous, now.
What does everyone else say about this? Why have there been fewer merchandise-driven franchises, recently? Did the makers finally realize that audiences prefer well-written stories over barely-disguised advertisements for merchandise?
As a side note, Yoshiyuki Tomino, the creator of the Gundam franchise, frequently clashed with the staff at Sunrise during the producing of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series; Tomino wanted the series to be a serious war drama, whereas Sunrise wished for it to be merchandise-driven, which is why the original series had so many one-shot characters and bizarre mobile suit designs. Thankfully, Tomino eventually won, and every series that followed was a serious war drama (except for Mobile Fighter G-Gundam, which was essentially "Gundam meets Dragon Ball").
As another side note, that was the reason for which 2011 reboot of Thundercats was cancelled after only one season; the merchandise was not selling well, which provides clear evidence of why the makers of such series should focus on telling great stories, rather than selling merchandise.
Short answer:we didn't have smart phones iPads and the internet back then, forms of entertainment change, the whole goal of the merchandise was to seperate parents from the money in their wallet, it's just done differently now :)
August 23, 2020 12:38 p.m.
defamagraphy1 says... #4
I think merchandizing is now being pushed at adults, it's just less noticed or even perhaps subliminally done I suppose.
For example, within the past ten years as Marvel movies were released merchandising through Marvel has grown tremendously. At one point you could walk into just about any store to find at least one person wearing some form of Marvel merchadised product, despite thst person never picking up a comic book in their life.
I think there's a huge push through pop culture and fads and it's done more through social media, selfies, YouTube videos, and what people discuss more. One person makes a "change" and in kind of a lemming fashion everyone follows as we're bombarded by more ads. We may have ignored it, but our brain still picked it up and the more we see and scroll past, the more we tend to talk about or follow, which our phones pick up and produce more ads for said item.
All those kids in the 80's and 90's who advertising was aimed at to separate parents from wallets are now adults and since we can buy it ourselves now, the advertising is directly aimed at us in a very very underhanded way mind you.
Caerwyn says... #2
Without having direct evidence, I think we can still make a conclusion based on the following facts:
Animated production costs are increasing. This cost increase is likely driven by improved animation techniques and the requirement for better writing due to greater competition in the market due to streaming platforms.
Toy sales are falling as children turn to digital platforms for entertainment.
I recall reading somewhere that the only animated advertisement-driven TV shows lost money as a show because they knew they’d make it up with the toys. I suspect that is still true - so, with costs increasing and returns falling, it really isn’t worth the “advertising buy” of making the show, unless you’re something well-established and remaining successful, like Transformers.
August 23, 2020 10:26 a.m.