Hasbro

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Hasbro, Inc.

logo
legal form Inc.
ISIN US4180561072
founding 1923
Seat Pawtucket , Rhode Island , USA
management Brian Goldner (CEO)
sales 4.29 billion USD (2011)
Branch Game publisher
Website www.hasbro.com

Hasbro is an American toy manufacturer based in Pawtucket , Rhode Island in the USA. The company name is made up of the name Has senfeld Bro thers . Hasbro sells a. a. Monopoly (originally from Parker Brothers ).

Company history

Hasbro was founded in 1923 by the brothers Henry and Hillel Hassenfeld in Providence , Rhode Island. The small family business initially produced pencil cases and other school materials until toys were first marketed in 1943 . The foundation for Hasbro's success was laid with the introduction of the toys Mr. Potato Head (1952) and GI Joe (1964).

By specializing in the toy store, the company was able to expand in 1968 grew out of the family business, the Hasbro Industries Inc . Hasbro continued to expand its market position internationally through acquisitions and further development:

  • In 1984 the games and puzzle manufacturer Milton Bradley (MB) was taken over.
  • In 1989, Hasbro took over the toy manufacturer Coleco, including the Selchow & Righter brand, for $ 85 million.
  • In 1991, Hasbro took over the toy manufacturer Tonka and with it the Parker Brothers and Kenner brands .
  • In 1994, Hasbro took over British game maker Waddingtons for £ 50 million .
  • In 1995 the computer game division Hasbro Interactive started and was the first to publish the Monopoly game on CD-ROM. In 2001, the loss-making Hasbro Interactive was sold to the French software company Infogrames for $ 100 million.
  • In 1998, Hasbro bought the US toy manufacturer Tiger Electronics . The acquisition of Tiger Electronics in 1998 brought the Furby , an electronic toy figure, onto the market, which has been sold over 40 million times worldwide.
  • In 1998, Hasbro bought toy maker Galoob for $ 220 million.
  • In 1998, Hasbro bought the rights to the entire Avalon Hill game program from Monarch Avalon Printing .
  • In 1998, Hasbro acquired all of the remaining rights to Atari Corporation for $ 5 million, but sold it to Infogrames in 2000 .
  • In 1999 Hasbro took over the trading card and role-playing game manufacturer Wizards of the Coast ( Magic , Dungeons & Dragons ).
  • In 2005 Hasbro took over the 3D puzzle maker Wrebbit.
  • In 2008, Hasbro acquired game maker Cranium, Inc. for $ 69 million.
  • In 2008, Hasbro bought Playmates Toys' license to make strawberry shortcake figures.
  • In 2018, Hasbro bought the licensing rights for Power Rangers from Saban Brands for approximately $ 522 million.
  • In 2019, Hasbro announced that it would buy the Canadian-British production company Entertainment One for $ 4 billion .

Mattel

Barbie manufacturers Mattel and Hasbro have repeatedly negotiated a merger , around 1996 and 2015 . In 2017, the stock market value of Mattel fell sharply, and in November 2017 Hasbro submitted a takeover offer for its largest competitor Mattel.

partner

From 1978 to 2000, Hasbro worked with the New York advertising agency Griffin Bacal, which not only developed advertising strategies for new Hasbro products and toy series, but also, as the owner of the cartoon studio Sunbow Productions, had animated series developed on behalf of Hasbro, which were used as advertising for Hasbro- Products should serve.

Hasbro has had business relationships with the Japanese toy manufacturer Takara since 1972. The best-known collaboration between the two companies is the Transformers toy series , the original characters of which were developed by Takara and given a new background story and a new name for the American market in 1984 by Hasbro, Griffin Bacal and the comic book publisher Marvel . From 1985 Takara took over the American concept including the name "Transformers" for the Japanese market. To this day, designers from both companies are developing new Transformers figures in close cooperation. Another collaboration between the two companies is Beyblade (published in Japan by Takara from 1999, distributed worldwide by Hasbro since 2002).

In 1999, Hasbro began another partnership with the Japanese manufacturer Tomy, who, among other things, released Star Wars toys developed by Hasbro under license on the Japanese market. In return, Hasbro released Tomys Zoids toys in the US from 2001 . In 2005 Takara and Tomy merged to become Takara Tomy (outside of Japan since then simply “Tomy”). The new company continues the existing cooperation with Hasbro unchanged. Since 2008, the American figure Sideshow Collectibles and Hot Toys (2013) 12  inches wide GI Joe -Figuren forth under license Hasbro.

Corporate policy

Product safety

Like most toy manufacturers, Hasbro also runs tests and safety examinations to protect children in order to offer quality and protection against injuries. Hasbro toys are manufactured according to the provisions of the EU safety standard EN-71 , among other things .

When reports of poor safety standards and toxic lead paints in toys produced in China, mainly toys from Hasbro's competitor Mattel , and the resulting product recalls made headlines in 2007, Hasbro's American parent company responded with an official statement that said, that the safety regulations for all Hasbro products not only meet the legal requirements, they even exceed them. In fact, there was not a single Hasbro product among the toys in question.

marketing

Hasbro was the first toy manufacturer to introduce targeted advertising for children in the spirit of Pester Power for Mr. Potato Head from 1952 . Up until then, advertising for children was considered amoral and the industry feared losses from angry parents.

In the early 1980s, American toy manufacturers were looking for new ways to market their products. Since the Federal Communications Commission still had strict regulations with regard to the admissible advertising minutes on children's television at that time, the toy companies had both comics and animated series produced, the primary aim of which was to market toys of the same name, and declared the animated series to advertise the comics. In 1984 the FCC lifted the restrictions on this. In Hasbro's case, there were animated series about GI Joe (1983, based on the restart of the toy series under the title GI Joe: A Real American Hero ), The Transformers and My Little Pony (both 1984). In all three cases, the mutual relationship between toys and television series resulted in mutual success. Full-length cartoons for the series were also commissioned, but after The Transformers: The Movie and My Little Pony: The Movie hit the box office flops in 1986, GI Joe: The Movie was only released on video. In later years Hasbro had many more cartoon series produced for current toy series.

In addition, Hasbro has been licensing comic book publishers such as Marvel , Dreamwave Productions , Devil's Due Publishing and IDW Publishing for several decades to publish comics based on Hasbro toy series such as Transformers or GI Joe . As in the case of the cartoon series, Hasbro exerts varying degrees of influence on the comic book authors so that they increasingly focus on new products (e.g. characters or vehicles) in the stories.

In the new millennium, Hasbro, following the example of Marvel and DC, wants to see itself increasingly understood as an entertainment company. Instead of animated and comic adaptations of Hasbro toy series, film adaptations from Hasbro licenses are to play a larger role in the future. It all started with the Transformers film in 2007 , which was continued with Transformers - The Revenge (2009) and Transformers 3 (2011), followed by a film adaptation of GI Joe, GI Joe - Cobra and, from April 12, 2012, Battleship . A film adaptation of the board game Monopoly is planned as well as a film adaptation of the figure Stretch Armstrong, originally made by Kenner . For Hasbro, this marks the beginning of a trend reversal: Instead of the “toy with the film”, there should now be more often the “film with the toy”. Hasbro hopes that this will reduce costs and increase income.

Hasbro's NERF toy system is particularly popular among boys . They are colorful plastic toys ( dartblasters ) that are reminiscent of guns or pistols and from which arrows (darts) made of foam are fired.

Since October 2010, Hasbro has been operating a new television channel called The Hub in collaboration with Discovery Communications , replacing Discovery Kids. The Hub also broadcasts new and old series based on Hasbro products.

Hasbro Cinematic Universe

In 2015, the toy manufacturer announced the Hasbro Cinematic Universe, a franchise and fictional universe based around its characters. A separate film universe is to be built based on the model of Marvel's MCU. In this, characters like the "Micronauts" should play in the same universe as "GI Joe" and establish a Hasbro Cinematic Universe. Films have been announced for various Hasbro toy series, including the Transformers and the GI Joe franchise. This is to begin in autumn 2020 with Snake Eyes: GI Joe Origins by director Robert Schwentke , as a spin-off from GI Joe - Secret Mission Cobra and GI Joe - The Reckoning , followed by Micronauts about a group of microscopic fighters in space, which took place in October Should appear in 2020, but was postponed to June 2021. Likewise, the film series about Transformers , which was made from 2007, is to be continued within the Hasbro Cinematic Universe . Originally, the toy and cartoon series of the same name, MASK, with small action figures that control vehicles that can transform, and ROM based on the character "Rom the Space Knight", a space knight who was the star of a Marvel comic in the 1980s , belong to the HCU, but were later removed from it.

overview

Movie title Director status
Snake Eyes: GI Joe Origins Robert Schwentke planned theatrical release October 2020
Micronauts Dean DeBlois planned theatrical release June 2021
Untitled Transformers Project planned cinema release in 2022
GI Joe: Ever Vigilant DJ Caruso
Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light
MASK: Mobile Armored Strike Command F. Gary Gray Announced in 2018, later removed from HCU
ROM film adaptation taken from HCU

social commitment

Hasbro has been the namesake of Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence , Rhode Island , since 1994 .

Hasbro Germany

The German Hasbro subsidiary, Hasbro Deutschland GmbH, was formally established in 1991 as a result of the international implementation of the company name and emerged from the former German branch of Milton Bradley (MB), which Hasbro had taken over in 1984 . Until then, Hasbro's European subsidiaries were under the control of Hasbro UK.

Hasbro Germany has been headquartered in Dreieich near Frankfurt am Main since 2006 . The logistics center for deliveries and the warehouse for sales throughout Europe are still located at the old company headquarters in Soest , Westphalia .

Web links

Commons : Hasbro  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hasbro achieved sales and earnings growth in fiscal 2011 . Brandora . February 7, 2012. Retrieved December 5, 2015.
  2. ^ COMPANY NEWS; Hasbro's Purchase Of Coleco's Assets ( English ) New York Times . July 13, 1998. Retrieved December 5, 2015.
  3. ↑ Monopoly at kilroywashere.org (English)
  4. ^ Rodney P. Carlisle: Encyclopedia of Play in Today's Society, Volume 1, SAGE, 2009, p. 250
  5. ↑ Interview with Frank Fay, Senior Product Manager at Atari / Hasbro Interactive in March 2000 ( Memento of the original from April 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.videospielgeschichten.de
  6. ↑ Hasbro Acquires Assets of Wrebbit, Significantly Expanding Its Worldwide Puzzle portfolio; Hasbro to Bring Highly Innovative Puzzles to Global Market ( Memento from July 13, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  7. ↑ Hasbro eliminating jobs at Cranium at The Seattle Times (English)
  8. ↑ Hasbro buys Power Rangers license. May 1, 2018, accessed August 6, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Entertainment One: Hasbro buys maker of "Peppa Pig" for four billion dollars. Retrieved August 28, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Report: Toy company Hasbro wants to swallow Mattel orf.at, November 11, 2017, accessed November 11, 2017.
  11. ^ "The Champions Series: A Salute to Griffin Bacal: Creative courage keeps kids specialist shop Griffin Bacal a leap ahead," Kidscreen, May 1, 1997, accessed July 8, 2009.
  12. ↑ http://www.sideshowtoy.com/?page_id=4335
  13. ^ Official statement by Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner on the safety of Hasbro products , December 2007, accessed July 8, 2009.
  14. ↑ Interview with the former Hasbro employee George Dunsay  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Thetransformers.de, January 1, 2007. Accessed October 10, 2009.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.thetransformers.de  
  15. ↑ MSNBC .com: "Hasbro banking on 'Transformers' hitting it big" , June 18, 2007, accessed September 25, 2007.
  16. ↑ Christopher Palmeri: With Transformers, Hasbro Morphs Its Toy-Movie Model ( English ) In: Businessweek . Bloomberg LP . June 12, 2009. Retrieved December 5, 2015.
  17. ↑ a b Hasbro Cinematic Universe: Paramount sets start dates. In: serienjunkies.de, December 19, 2017.
  18. ↑ Jan Felix Wuttig: "Micronauts": With this film, the "How to Train Your Dragon" director is supposed to build a whole universe. In: filmstarts.de, September 24, 2019.
  19. ↑ Whatever Happened to the Hasbro Cinematic Universe? , cbr.com, August 17, 2019
  20. ↑ The Hasbro Cinematic Universe in the Internet Movie Database
  21. ↑ GI-Joe-Spin-Off Snake Eyes moved to the back. In: filmfutter.com, July 18, 2019.
  22. ↑ Hasbro Cinematic Universe: Paramount sets launch dates. In: serienjunkies.de, December 19, 2017.
  23. ↑ Toy manufacturer Hasbro: Animated "Transformers" prequel in planning , Stuttgarter Nachrichten , April 30, 2020
  24. ↑ Hasbro Cinematic Universe is shrinking: No "MASK", no "ROM"? In: moviejones.de, January 23, 2018.
  25. ↑ Chris Evangelista: The Hasbro Cinematic Universe is Getting Smaller. In: slashfilm.com, January 22, 2018.
  26. ↑ Vera Tidona: GI Joe: Snake Eyes - Director Robert Schwentke is to turn a spin-off for the action series. In: gamestar.de, December 5, 2018.
  27. ↑ Bory's Kit: 'GI Joe 3' Nabs 'Section 6' Writer. In: The Hollywood Reporter, April 1, 2015.
  28. ^ Gregg Kilday: Paramount, Hasbro Creating Movie Universe Around GI Joe, Four Other Brands. In: The Hollywood Reporter, December 15, 2015.
  29. ^ Website of Hasbro Children's Hospital ( English ) Rhode Island Hospital . Retrieved December 5, 2015.
  30. ↑ From a family business to a global corporation . Hasbro Germany GmbH. Retrieved December 5, 2015.
  31. ↑ a b "Monopoly" now comes from Dreieich . FAZ.net . January 9, 2006. Retrieved December 6, 2015.