Scott Neitlich from Matty Collector Interview
Aug 12, 2019 14:19:42 GMT -5
Chicago, marklud, and 1 more like this
Post by punksnotdead on Aug 12, 2019 14:19:42 GMT -5
The Yes Have Some podcast had Scott Neitlich on recently and I thought others would enjoy the listen or to read some of the info. If you're not familiar with him, Scott was the Marketing Director for Matty collector from its launch until fall of 2014.
He gave some fascinating tidbits during the discussion. Scott went to Mattel, who he worked for starting in 2005, and pitched the idea for Matty Collector because he is a collector and he wanted to bring adult geared collectibles using the Mattel licenses to fans. He was buying stuff like Toybiz Marvel Legends and McFarlane and he wanted Mattel to take advantage of that adult collector space. He put together a business plan in 90 days and Mattel let him go to work. He ran Matty in his free time on nights and weekends. This was not his official job title and at no point during the Matty run was he ever given a Matty related job title. He was the Marketing Director for the DC retail line and that was his official title until the day he left.
The original idea, or thought, was that the DC Justice League license was really going to support Matty financially and kind of carry the concept. However, he said the DC stuff flopped and it was He-Man who became the star of the show. At which point, Sony approached Mattel and wanted to be involved in Matty with Ghostbusters after they saw the success with He-man. Mattel agreed to work with Sony on Matty because they wanted Ghostbusters for mass retail when a new movie came out. (Just as a side bar, this was like 07/08 and we never even got a new movie until 2016. Really alluding to the fact that GB3 2010 was supposed to be the target film date when these discussions were happening.)
Scott was involved in everything but he never had an official job title as the point person in charge of Matty. So when he left towards the end of 2014, nobody ever replaced him. He said they were through planning for the next two years (So SDCC 2015 and 2016) and Matty continued to largely operate from his blueprint during that time. Mattel never replaced him with an official point person and Matty Collector had nobody internally going to bat for it after Scott departed. This is a big part of why the wheels fell off.
Some standout items:
- The subscription service was replacing a retail buyer with fans. It was a gamble because they were asking fans to commit to a year's worth of product because the stores wouldn't. And the runs were smaller so the prices were higher. This is common sense now with stuff like KickStarter or HasLab but in 2006 or 2007, this was a big ask of collectors. They had to meet a minimum order quantity with the factory or the price just kept going up on figure costs. Without the subscriptions, Mattel wasn't going to green light the figures.
- He thought what Matty did with Thundercats after he left was really hurtful that they only released the one wave and had no followup. He tried to approach everything he did with the opposite mindset that he wanted to give collectors as complete a collection as possible. He was particularly proud of how much they got out for MOTU.
- The Kenner Ghostbusters retro line was a real thing Matty was making and it got past sculpting. It was to be a 3 and 3/4 line (which is honestly disappointing imo), and Scott was really surprised the first wave never got released after he left.
- They had plans to make both the Terror Dog and Janine but the tooling was just too much money. He also said there was a weird rights issue with Janine that they could only make a GB2 version. She was going to be about $50K to tool and none of her parts were really going to be reusable. So that's why we kept not seeing her.
- He said Bill Murray shot down likeness rights on a few different occasions. So if you remember correctly, that's why PV wasn't released right out of the gate. That's also why Egon with Slimer was the first SDCC exclusive because they had to swap out Murray since he wasn't approved.
- One of the major reasons Matty Collector got shut down was the fan backlash online. He said most of the execs didn't even care about Matty as long as they were breaking even but the complaints on the internet were perceived as making the company look bad. A case of the few ruining it for the many.
- He said a number of times when he wanted to make changes that fans complained about, Mattel had a "they're lucky to be getting it at all" mentality. Which was frustrating for him but the reality of what he was dealing with when fans took issue with cosmetic or parts issues.
- The Mego Ghostbusters bombed but they sold it to ToysRus as a retail exclusive and everyone was really excited about it prior to launch.
- He did design a functioning proton pack for Matty. So that was planned and he thought it was still planned for release in 2016 and that obviously never happened. He said it was really intricate because they were working with different parts and manufacturers that they didn't normal use because the pack had lights and sounds. So those factors mixed with the overall cost kept getting it delayed but it was in the plans.
- He got legitimate angry emails from fans asking why the BTTF2 Hoverbaord didn't actually hover...
- The Courtroom Egon was kind of the last thing he physically worked on before he left. He really pushed the figure as being a celebration of Raimis' life since he passed away and letting fans wrap up their courtroom collection, and he said he really had to fight for it to get made because they were really slowing down with Ghostbusters. That came out SDCC 2015 after he left.
- Master licenses are going away for toy licensees. He called it slicening. I took this exactly like how DC went for 2020. Companies can license directly to stores now and guaranteeing those retailers their own line/niche is a really big part of getting product to retail. Which perfectly answers the chase figures going on right now with the WWE line.
I just found this really fascinating. Here is the youtube video but you can listen to the podcast on iTunes or Spotify, as well.
He gave some fascinating tidbits during the discussion. Scott went to Mattel, who he worked for starting in 2005, and pitched the idea for Matty Collector because he is a collector and he wanted to bring adult geared collectibles using the Mattel licenses to fans. He was buying stuff like Toybiz Marvel Legends and McFarlane and he wanted Mattel to take advantage of that adult collector space. He put together a business plan in 90 days and Mattel let him go to work. He ran Matty in his free time on nights and weekends. This was not his official job title and at no point during the Matty run was he ever given a Matty related job title. He was the Marketing Director for the DC retail line and that was his official title until the day he left.
The original idea, or thought, was that the DC Justice League license was really going to support Matty financially and kind of carry the concept. However, he said the DC stuff flopped and it was He-Man who became the star of the show. At which point, Sony approached Mattel and wanted to be involved in Matty with Ghostbusters after they saw the success with He-man. Mattel agreed to work with Sony on Matty because they wanted Ghostbusters for mass retail when a new movie came out. (Just as a side bar, this was like 07/08 and we never even got a new movie until 2016. Really alluding to the fact that GB3 2010 was supposed to be the target film date when these discussions were happening.)
Scott was involved in everything but he never had an official job title as the point person in charge of Matty. So when he left towards the end of 2014, nobody ever replaced him. He said they were through planning for the next two years (So SDCC 2015 and 2016) and Matty continued to largely operate from his blueprint during that time. Mattel never replaced him with an official point person and Matty Collector had nobody internally going to bat for it after Scott departed. This is a big part of why the wheels fell off.
Some standout items:
- The subscription service was replacing a retail buyer with fans. It was a gamble because they were asking fans to commit to a year's worth of product because the stores wouldn't. And the runs were smaller so the prices were higher. This is common sense now with stuff like KickStarter or HasLab but in 2006 or 2007, this was a big ask of collectors. They had to meet a minimum order quantity with the factory or the price just kept going up on figure costs. Without the subscriptions, Mattel wasn't going to green light the figures.
- He thought what Matty did with Thundercats after he left was really hurtful that they only released the one wave and had no followup. He tried to approach everything he did with the opposite mindset that he wanted to give collectors as complete a collection as possible. He was particularly proud of how much they got out for MOTU.
- The Kenner Ghostbusters retro line was a real thing Matty was making and it got past sculpting. It was to be a 3 and 3/4 line (which is honestly disappointing imo), and Scott was really surprised the first wave never got released after he left.
- They had plans to make both the Terror Dog and Janine but the tooling was just too much money. He also said there was a weird rights issue with Janine that they could only make a GB2 version. She was going to be about $50K to tool and none of her parts were really going to be reusable. So that's why we kept not seeing her.
- He said Bill Murray shot down likeness rights on a few different occasions. So if you remember correctly, that's why PV wasn't released right out of the gate. That's also why Egon with Slimer was the first SDCC exclusive because they had to swap out Murray since he wasn't approved.
- One of the major reasons Matty Collector got shut down was the fan backlash online. He said most of the execs didn't even care about Matty as long as they were breaking even but the complaints on the internet were perceived as making the company look bad. A case of the few ruining it for the many.
- He said a number of times when he wanted to make changes that fans complained about, Mattel had a "they're lucky to be getting it at all" mentality. Which was frustrating for him but the reality of what he was dealing with when fans took issue with cosmetic or parts issues.
- The Mego Ghostbusters bombed but they sold it to ToysRus as a retail exclusive and everyone was really excited about it prior to launch.
- He did design a functioning proton pack for Matty. So that was planned and he thought it was still planned for release in 2016 and that obviously never happened. He said it was really intricate because they were working with different parts and manufacturers that they didn't normal use because the pack had lights and sounds. So those factors mixed with the overall cost kept getting it delayed but it was in the plans.
- He got legitimate angry emails from fans asking why the BTTF2 Hoverbaord didn't actually hover...
- The Courtroom Egon was kind of the last thing he physically worked on before he left. He really pushed the figure as being a celebration of Raimis' life since he passed away and letting fans wrap up their courtroom collection, and he said he really had to fight for it to get made because they were really slowing down with Ghostbusters. That came out SDCC 2015 after he left.
- Master licenses are going away for toy licensees. He called it slicening. I took this exactly like how DC went for 2020. Companies can license directly to stores now and guaranteeing those retailers their own line/niche is a really big part of getting product to retail. Which perfectly answers the chase figures going on right now with the WWE line.
I just found this really fascinating. Here is the youtube video but you can listen to the podcast on iTunes or Spotify, as well.