Hasbro vs Mattel - Dream Doll | 1
Business Wars
Audible
4.6 • 13.5K Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2019
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s the late 1940s and two small toymakers are taking their first uneasy steps. The names of these young hopefuls are Hasbro and Mattel. One’s an offshoot of a pencil manufacturer. The other a husband-and-wife garage start-up.
But toy-mayking, they soon discover, is an unexpectedly cutthroat business. If either of these companies hopes to survive--let alone succeed--they’re going to need to get creative. Disrupting the embedded and experienced kingpins of Toyland, will require them to take chances on TV, potatoes, Mickey Mouse and one particularly risqué novelty doll from Germany.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, prime members, you can listen to business wars, add free on Amazon music. |
| 0:04.8 | Download the app today. |
| 0:15.1 | It's March, 1947, and everyone who's anyone in the world of toys is in New York City at |
| 0:21.0 | the annual Toy Fair conference. |
| 0:22.8 | Thousands of retail buyers and the nation's toy makers are showcasing their latest play |
| 0:27.6 | things. |
| 0:28.6 | Shopping one will take off. |
| 0:31.1 | Toymaker Elliott Handler, he is one of them. |
| 0:33.9 | He's a Lanky 30-year-old with curly black hair. |
| 0:37.1 | Two years ago, he and his wife Ruth started a toy company called Mattel in a converted |
| 0:42.6 | Los Angeles garage. |
| 0:44.7 | Elliott's never been to Toy Fair before, but he's hoping to make a splash with his latest |
| 0:48.9 | creation. |
| 0:49.9 | It's a toy ukulele called the Yucadoodle. |
| 0:53.7 | He spent the morning strumming the Yucadoodle for prospective buyers, but now he's using |
| 0:58.9 | his break time to check out the competition. |
| 1:02.7 | He wanders down the toy fill aisles, eyes wide as a kid's on Christmas morning. |
| 1:08.5 | He sees baby dolls blowing bubbles, ray guns that spark when fired, and model suburbs |
| 1:14.4 | populated by little plastic people. |
| 1:18.2 | He steps over clockwork turtles whaddling across the floor, and dodges ricocheting rubber |
| 1:23.5 | balls. |
| 1:24.8 | He turns a corner and sees the showroom of industry giant nicker-bocker toys just up ahead. |
... |
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