A confirmed industry analyst is leaking exclusively to That Park Place that studios and merchandising partners are splitting the market along political lines.
The following article is the third in a series of leaks from a professional in the toy industry working for a major partner of The Walt Disney Company. The individual providing the information has been kept anonymous to protect their identity and career — it is one that spans more than three decades and connects with a number of additional contacts at very high levels across the merchandising aspect of
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A toy insider with major connections is reaching out to That Park Place again with impressive details. According to this individual, whom we have verified as being an expert within the industry, the toy market in North America is beginning to split into politically-based markets. The rise of “conservative entertainment” is how it is being termed with executives inside the industry, many of whom are bewildered by this “new thing.” And what fits into this “conservative entertainment” segment of the toy industry? It may surprise you.
Here are some criteria that various studios and merchandising partners are working with in regards to what corporations believe is a new movement. And, according to the source, that’s being driven in large part due to movies like Top Gun: Maverick having phenomenal returns that broke through the ceiling of what analysts believed was possible.
- Patriotic
- Military and law enforcement positively portrayed
- Mostly if not all heterosexual, [redacted to protect site from algorithm damage]
- No spotlight on alphabet issues
- Marriage/family unit seen as positive institution; kids love and admire their parents, parents sacrificing for each other and their kids
- Communities seen as unifying, institutions shown as positives
- Multiple white males in cast, can be majority ; in leadership roles
- Feminine good looking women, masculine men;
- Hero archetype is intact
- Fire arms not seen as inherently bad, can be shown as a means of protection
In essence, this looks very similar to how the market dealt with entertainment and the United States at the end of the Cold War, during the eighties and early nineties.
https://twitter.com/AKulas50/status/1564742050670555139
One interesting thing about this is that while studios and merchandise companies are looking to split the market to appeal to radically different demographics based on politics (boy doesn’t that make you feel great about our society’s cohesion), there’s a chance that the opposite market — let’s call it the liberal market — could go harder into directions we’ve highlighted on this site in the past.
In the meantime, here is how this toy analyst is seeing studios modify their strategies for reaching a demographic that they’ve discovered underserved after this year’s Spider-Man No Way Home and Top Gun: Maverick results — two movies they seem to believe are “conservative”:
Ahh, but we’ve done mandates for some tv production houses (to help them put together their sell-in pitches) and we know that there is not only a demand for entertainment with the above points and a few more (which is really just entertainment with pre-2015 ethos..), but there is a craving for it!
So a couple things have been allowed to “slip through the cracks” by the current gate keeps, some as tests, and have rung some bells (say Yellowstone, the recently released Jack Parr project with Chris Pratt, a cheap, banal but satisfying soap opera over on Netflix – Virgin River – on par with Disney+ Star Wars in viewers, a banal straight out of the 90’s lite sci-fi drama now on Netflix called Manifest doing great, the whole Hallmark network, the views that’s older tv shows and movies are getting, etc) … all validated by Top Gun 2.
Essentially, the market is doing what the market always does: it’s searching for money. The problem in our current culture is that American is splitting into two distinct cultural groups… and there’s no good way to unify those in media and merchandise. As a result, companies are going to begin separating their offerings into distinctly conservative and distinctly liberal properties. Sure, there will still be the Mickey Mouse brands that try to appeal to both sides, but as the source says, even Star Wars has been damaged by the bifurcation of the market.
With Star Wars now badly damaged and relegated to a mid-pack license with some golden sweet spots, and Marvel limping and coming to a crossroads, the days of the wide, across the spectrum appeal IP might be done.
The pop culture landscape has always had multiple IPs bubbling at any given time of course, but there was always a few that everybody were at least partially on board with, if not all in on. These keys brought everybody together, were cultural touchstones. Everybody had their own personal favorites, but where on board with this handful that unified, brought people together. Music and sports also did that.
Interestingly, another movie this year that seemed to appeal to conservatives was Sonic the Hedgehog 2. That’s incredible considering the movie featured Jim Carrey, an actor who is outspokenly against conservative politicians, and a very diverse cast. It may point to 1) conservative markets not being interested in racial percentages in entertainment and 2) being willing to overlook problematic actors if the overall narrative does not offend. Remember that in Sonic, his best friend and surrogate dad is a police officer who is presented in a very positive light. So are other police officers. So is Smalltown, USA!
So where does this all take us?
I believe it reflects further the divisions between the United States regions. More and more places that vote in one way are looking and acting differently than places that vote another way. The market can’t work the same in Miami and New York, Nashville and San Francisco. And that includes toys.
Next up… we’ll be talking about G.I. Joe and where that property goes in the future…
For all the news that should be fun, keep reading That Park Place! As always, drop a comment down below and let us know your thoughts.
