Stay Calm & Enjoy Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head

 by Chris Lucas

Guest Column

DisneyBizJournal.com

March 1, 2021

 

See the two names circled in the photo? Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head.

 

Despite the usual suspects whipping up gullible people who don’t read past headlines into outrage, Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head aren’t going anywhere. Nobody is pushing any sort of agenda with the rebranding, either. Hasbro has simply renamed the overall “Potato” brand as a whole, to better reflect the fact that the line has close to 100 other products, besides the iconic duo.

 

Here are the facts.

 

Hasbro, the third biggest toy maker in the world (behind Namco-Bandai of Japan and LEGO of Denmark), has seen its sales on physical toys and games steadily slipping with most of their lines since 2010, when brick and mortar stores like Toys R Us - Hasbro’s biggest retail partner - started going under and the popularity of apps, instant downloads and iPads/iPhones for kids started zooming. Their Potato Head products are among those bleeding revenue for Hasbro every quarter. 

 

February is the annual Toy Fair month (this year it’s virtual) when companies announce their toy lines and plans for the upcoming Christmas season so that retailers, TV stations and buyers can be ready for the fall blitz and the publicity hype can begin. 

 

Hasbro chose this opportunity to put out a press release about their Potato Head re-branding for Christmas 2021. 

 

It’s business, pure and simple.

 

Like most Fortune 500 corporations, toy companies don’t operate in a vacuum. Every decision they make affects their bottom line and their shareholders. Money comes before anything else. Changes are not made on a whim. In the case of Hasbro, 80% of their shares are owned by institutional investors. If you have a 401K or Mutual Fund, chances are that a portion of your future lies with the success or failure of Hasbro. 

 

For the last five years, Hasbro has been conducting intense marketing tests and surveys with parents and children about their various product lines. One of the things they discovered about the Potato Head brand was that people didn’t know that there was more to it than just the plain old Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head dolls.

 

Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head have been around since the 1950s and are in the Toy Hall of Fame, but for most of today’s kids, the appeal of Mr. Potato Head is lagging. The largest portion of Potato Head sales in the last few years have come from their collectible lines of celebrity Potato Heads, using characters from pop culture TV shows and movies, and it’s usually adults buying those, not to play with but to display. A brand refresh was desperately needed.

 

Hasbro’s solution, for Christmas 2021 and beyond, was to create a fun and colorful new logo and brand simply called “Potato Head” that would encompass all of the toys, collectibles and sub-brands in the Potato Head line without the current confusing packaging saying things like “Mr. Potato Head’s Princess Leia Figure.”

 

Hasbro also has their own motion picture division. It’s part of their attempt to capitalize on their in house famous brands, like they did with their multi-billion dollar Transformers films (and, to a lesser extent, GI Joe and Battleship.) The Potato Head brand is going to be part of that division, as the new logo will be used for an animated movie, TV shows, video games, books, clothing, etc. that will introduce new and old characters into the Potato Head world universe, creating, hopefully, new demand and buzz. (There was a short lived Potato Head cartoon in the 1980s that did just that, adding about twenty new characters to the line, many of whom are still there.) 

 

Speaking of “Buzz,” there’s a complication.

 

The specific characters of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head have already been licensed to Disney/Pixar for movie and TV appearances by way of their popular Toy Story series. When Buzz Lightyear, Woody and their friends debuted in 1995, Mr. Potato Head - memorably voiced by Don Rickles - was a breakout star of the first film. Sales of Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head, which had been dropping since the mid 1980s, rose 800% for Hasbro thanks to Toy Story and its sequels. They even redesigned their own product to look more like Disney’s version. 

 

Hasbro is contractually not allowed to produce their own TV shows and movies specifically about Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head. By creating a new Potato Head universe, independent of the two iconic characters who started it all, Hasbro cleverly gets to expand their line into other media without stepping on Disney’s toes and breaching their deal with them. 

 

Once again, money talks. 

 

Creating an umbrella name for a familiar brand is not unusual. 

 

Disney’s Consumer Division did it in 2005 with their line of Disney Princesses products, encompassing several characters under one logo without erasing the identity of those characters. Likewise, Peanuts has been doing the same since the 1960s, with individual Snoopy and Charlie Brown products sold under one banner. Mattel, Hasbro’s rival, has toys that most kids in the 1980s called “He-Man figures,” though the umbrella brand name is Masters of the Universe. Many people still call the original 1977 Star Wars film “Star Wars” though the brand name now encompasses all nine of the trilogy films and all of the spin-offs. See the pattern?

 

Companies like KFC and Dunkin’ in recent years have also taken to slightly tweaking their brand name and logos to essentially say, “Hey, we know that you think of us as this one product, but we have so many other things to offer that we are going to remove the original product name itself from our branding so as not to limit our appeal, but keep selling the original product anyway because we know you like it.” 

 

Finally, to the heart of why people are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill...

Hasbro is one of the companies that has recently committed itself to being more diverse and inclusive, especially when it comes to race and gender. This is a noble gesture, but seems to threaten some people, for some odd reason.

 

While the press release about the name brand change itself didn’t mention Hasbro’s diverse and inclusive mission, a company spokesperson did, and ignorant fools ran with this as an indication that “the sky is falling!” “Cancel culture is trying to ruin us!’ “They’re reshaping the landscape and controlling the narrative. They’re trying to control us!” And - of course - silly whataboutisms like, “But what are they doing about bigger problems like the homeless and hungry in this world? Why focus on changing the gender of a toy?! We are doomed!” (As if Hasbro, which actually does donate millions each year to charitable causes for children, has any say on ending hunger & homelessness.) 

 

Calm down there, folks. Nobody is trying to brainwash you or your children with this. It’s a business decision to bring a tired old toy brand into the 21st Century. You’ll still be able to buy the classic Mr. & Mrs. Potato Head toys with their names and appendages intact. Then you’ll be able to show folks exactly where on the doll Hasbro hurt you with this move, if you’d like.

 

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Chris Lucas is the author of Top Disney: 100 Top Ten Lists of the Best of Disney, from the Man to the Mouse and Beyond.

 

On the PRESS CLUB C Podcast, enjoy Ray’s discussion with Chris Lucas about his career as an actor, author and Disney expert. Tune in right here!