Gi Joe Case Analysis

Strategic Issue: In what way should Hasbro market the historical military action figure, G.I. Joe, to make the most of its strong brand name and regain market share in the highly competitive toy industry?

Analysis: “There’s no question that this is a tough market,” exclaimed Billy Lagor, Hasbro’s brand manager for G.I. Joe, in the marketing case. Hasbro understands that the toy industry should be approached with precaution at all times. It is important to examine the needs of children at play to determine the market segments. Factors to consider are the seasonality of sales, competition for shelf space in the retail stores and the shorter product life cycles. Moreover, the presence of video games and computers today has caused kids to stop playing with toys at ages 7 or 8. These factors should be taken into consideration before choosing the most suitable approach.

Children need to enjoy their playtime. Playing is an important stage in the life of a child as it can help children develop the knowledge they need to connect in meaningful ways to the challenges they will encounter in their early lives. According to an article by The Parent Teacher Association magazine Our Children, playing outside after school is less common in today’s children for social and economic reasons. Moreover, when children do have playtime, they prefer to watch TV or play videogames.^[1] Only those children that prefer basketball or soccer will end-up outside to perform their preferred activity.

Today's best-selling toys come in many forms. They promote highly-structured play and the action figures or video games are usually linked to cartoons or movies. Many of these cartoons include violence as their themes like Power Rangers or Ninja Turtles. G.I. Joe has some of these characteristics; therefore, the boy must be lenient to violence and adapt to it to exploit the action figure to its fullest.

The parents should not be excluded in the analysis. After all, they will make the decision whether to purchase the G.I. Joe or not. Therefore, G.I. Joe must be presented in a way in which it promotes liberty and relieve any opinions that it is simply a violent action figure by emphasizing “The Real American Hero” motto. With such approach, the parent versus child dilemma will be eased. A core value that the purchasing family will have is the pursuit of happiness, in other words, the parents will let their son enjoy their childhood by buying them the toy he wants.

Essentially, the market can be segmented into sports-oriented boys, classic cartoon-lovers, modern cartoon-watchers and video-gamers. The marketing strategy that G.I. Joe should pursue must address the modern cartoon-watcher, non sports-oriented and violence-tolerant child.

Alternatives: The G.I. Joe marketing team could use a traditional marketing approach. 

The traditional forms consist of printing ads, TV commercials, and websites in combination of continuous product innovation to determine market interest on the product(s). To use this approach successfully, G.I. Joe would need to dominate the market (in its subcategory) by managing the overall “Joe” brand through different factors and not solely on price.