Chapter 267: Production Rationale I
"Since you can't be convinced, why don't we just try the other things out for the fun of it?" Milla offered and reasoned. "You can find wearing a costume to be silly but enjoying an event that you "masterminded" should be fine, right?"
"I guess it should be alright." Alexander had no qualms with that. Except for the smoothness of it. "This can't just be your idea."
"Hehe! You're right! Grandpa Sullivan gave me notes." The little girl straight-up admitted to it. "You're my buddy in this place, so I had to prepare so that I can be the one to drag you around."
"Fair enough." Alexander was tasked to keep an eye on here after all and his intentions happen to coincide with roaming around this place. So why not?
"Yes!" Milla celebrated a bit before dragging him in a certain direction. "Let's go to the toy section first."
"Don't you have them already?" Alexander wasn't lying as Milla was the privileged nominal granddaughter of a spoiling grandfather. Said spoiling grandfather happen to own a toy production company.
"I'm not going there for the toys. I'm going there for the people." Milla offhandedly said while Alexander was surprised at how much it sounded like a samaritan-esque spiel.
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In any case, Milla had herself caught up in people's excitement. In addition to her excitable personality as a child, the atmosphere here was quite her liking.
Unlike introverted Alexander that didn't want any immersive participation, Milla was all in.
It didn't help that her big break was coming up and there was no mother to keep a strict watch on what she does.
The reason that two little kids like them were able to roam around this place was because of the Creed employees stationed around the area. Well, Miss Galina was still around but she took a step back to let her daughter enjoy herself in this event.
Of course, Alexander was an undisputedly level-headed kid, so having Milla stick around with him should be no problem.
Granted, the two of them had to go with a buddy system in this place, and as Milla enjoyed the "festivities" of the event… Alexander was more on observing and rationalizing things. Production and plan-making rationale was his thing nowadays.
He may not be able to fit an 'Undercover Boss' scenario now but he could still mingle around to get a more accurate observation of his business endeavors.
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The entire toy display in this entire area was straightforward as it can get- to sell and advertise toys.
Of course, there were TV sets in two specific stations but they were all for later.
As for the toys, they are extensions of existing toylines and the establishment of new ones.
In Alexander's opinion, that's just how the toy business is and that is what Creed Toys will continue to do.
From just Dragonballs itself, the toys in this event display were an example of how he expected toy production to go forward.
Aside from these new toys to be matching the covered storylines from respective comic books, they are made to be marginally new and different from the toy designs that it had established.
Toys would always hit their peaks and would go downhill when they lose their "new-ness". To combat that, new designs had to be put out, so that the new-ness will be refreshed.
Creed Toys can't survive by publishing the same pose of Goku or the same inventions of Bulma year after year. Shuffling and innovations need to be done.
In any case, that was Alexander's thoughts on that and that is why the other comic properties followed suit.
TMNT had new villains in the story and the first arc's final big bad, Shredder, was expected to be a matching big-seller as the turtles.
Of course, the Turtles and Foot clan ninjas on display now were marginally different from how their previous versions had been… even though it was just shifting of skater gear or two but that should be enough.
Taking inspiration from the original timeline’s Turtles and its stupendously successful toy line... Alexander had the plan to release varying Turtles iterations every year.
It was exploitative but that's just how business is.
Someone would probably point out such a droll tactic but with how the nerds of this convention are eating it up without complaint, Alexander was sure that Creed Toys will have customers either way.
Moving on from Dragonball and TMNT, the rest of the IPs under his belt had the same treatment.
ThunderCats, RoboCop, Predator, and Cybertronian Chronicles each had minor changes and upgrades to their previous iterations... but they weren't really that prominent as they had varying fixtures that are specific to their needs.
ThunderCats toyline was more on depictions of scenes in the comic books and also the addition of new characters as their adventures in Thundera progresses.
RoboCop's toyline was focused on cyborg and robot aspects of the story with both Alex Murphy and ED209 as also progressive technologies along with the storylines.
Predator toyline was much basing itself on a one-off 3-Volume release but the showcase of the new Predator and the upcoming storyline should revitalize it some more.
There's really not a lot to be said for Cybertronian Chronicles... because saying more on it would be incredibly plentiful. What's clear is that the Autobot and Decepticon toylines are Creed Toys' bestsellers and they made it doubly sure to keep it that way.
These were pretty much the upgrades from how these toylines had debuted in December of last year.
About 8 or so months after that, it was high time that they'd be invoked again into the toy market... and Comic-Con was the perfect platform to kick things off.
Of course, there are bombing-ly explosive toys that have to be added as well... and great examples of that would be the Great Ape Gokus on display. With high quality and rarity, these were the type of toys that are meant to keep the Creed Toys brand in elevated relevance.
Alexander wanted a Shenron toy but that was more of a truly artistic sculpt that is hard to come by. He just hoped that Creed Toys would advance to that level.
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In any case, that wasn't the only thing that was offered since the new toylines in this Comic-Con displays seem to be clear and accounted for.
The Hotaru and Shinri toys should pretty much serve as a baseline and test for all the anime-esque toys from all the anime and manga stories that Alexander would plunder in the future. Japanese culture had a lot of school-based and romance genres to take from after all and Hotaru and Shinri toys were good market testers.
Then from JoJo to Watchmen to Ace Attorney... it was a pretty straightforward push of comic book stories to toy-ification from there.
Alexander had to single-out Watchmen's Doctor Manhattan though... as it was the hardest one for him to decide on.
Nude Manhattan was the obvious way to go but what to do with his crotch was the brain teaser. It was hard to admit but Alexander had a bit of a stump on this one.
The Design Heads of the Creative team were actually going for that famous acorn statue as tribute to the David statue. It kinda makes sense as the suggestion came from art majors.
Then, there were the Engine Heads that proposed to keep the obstruction gag... and proposed newspapers and various assortments that would cover the godly man's au natural.
Of course, in the end, Alexander found both directions to be weird and ultimately decided on the “Ken” deal.
No acorn crotch or obstruction but the full spandex effect. As for the explanation... well, it was because Manhattan was so godly that he bleeped his private parts out of the toy buyer's perspective.
Granted, controversy and debate would probably rise from this decision... but so be it.
The extremely adult toy aside, there was the completely "young-er" version as well.
Alexander was pretty vocal with his decision to have a stuffed Hobbes ever since the whole April Easter and Phoenix Wright scenarios.
He simply made it happen and awaits the benefits and effects of it.
Of course, throughout all of this… cost-efficiency was key, and earning profits were of high import.
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"Alex, are you done being lost in your thoughts?" Milla sounded out as this usually happens when there was something important circulating in his thoughts.
"I guess I am." Alexander could pretty much admit that when he looked at toys now... it wasn't about how he'd imagine playing with them but looking back on the production rationale behind it.
"Anyways, I'm just wondering why all this exclusive stuff. Wouldn't you make more money if you make a lot of it?" She was pretty curious about this because a lot of people lining up to buy Creed Toys were quite curious about this as well.
She didn't have to debate against other curious people though because she could just ask the decision-maker behind all of this.
"Well... Comic-Con exclusives are to form camaraderie with the convention itself while limiting stuff creates value." Alexander may not have taken part in Comic-Cons but he did hear about these so-called Comic-Con exclusives. He just incorporated it to benefit himself. "When value rises, even the most unnecessary toys become sought after."
"Oh." Milla more or less understood but she had complaints. "Why is there no Charlie toy being sold then? Limited, exclusive, or not. Does that mean Charlie toys are even worse than unnecessary?"
"Erm..." Alexander didn't know that this little girl held a grudge for that but thankfully, they reached the BttF area to help his excuse.
"It's quite complicated, really... but it helps if you take a close look at the Doc Brown and Marty toys."
Milla did just that and she noticed this too. "They don't look like Michael and Old Christopher at all... just like how your BttF comic book version did not look like them too. But why?"
"Well... complications arise when real faces are involved. It complicatedly involves legal problems and is generally a pain." Alexander had rejoiced that they got rid of Glover for the Father McFly role but the DeepFake problem seems to stick closely to this time travel franchise.
Truth be told, the Creeds were just greedy, and paying facial royalties to actors could be avoided with this strategy.
Old Sullivan and him had considered utilizing "real faces" but that is just problematic for toy production. After all, buying the rights to use an actor's face is pretty impractical and all that suing nonsense would just be a pain.
In a way, they just went with the option that is less problematic and has less hassle. Of course, with even more honesty... Charlie and Milla were exempt from those problems but Alexander just found it best to not give it a go. One can never know how life really goes… and a 'family friend' now may be a 'family enemy' tomorrow.
Minimizing problems is key and Alexander simply explained it as such. "Simply put, facial likelihood is a no-go and by extension, Charlie toys that have your liking to it had to be on the back burner again. I hope you understand."
Milla was a bit disappointed but understood it as she can. "Well, it's fine if you put it that way."
Mission accomplished! Probably!