8/1/2013
Mattel is spending $10 million to $20 million to launch Ever After High, a new franchise based on fairy-tale legends targeting girls ages 6-14. “We know that [tween girls] want to be empowered, but they want to make their own choices about their friends, their interests, their hobbies, their lives,” says Mattel’s Tim Kilpin. “She’s outgrown traditional fairytales, but she likes humor, she likes to twist on the familiar and she loves pretending to be a teenager in high school.”
Mattel’s Ever After High franchise centers around a boarding school “where the children of fairytale legends learn to relive their parents’ destinies, whether they want to or not,” says Kilpin. The two central characters, Raven Queen and Apple White, are roommates and frenemies.
“So far, we’ve created dolls for nearly 40 Monster High characters,” says Kilpin, after learning from Monster High that girls don’t want one or two characters. “And Ever After High will be no different. Here, just some of the initial characters like Cerise Hood, daughter of Red Riding Hood; and Blondie Lockes, daughter of Goldilocks.”
This fall, Mattel is launching “Ever After High” with 110 minutes of animated content, including a dozen webisodes and a TV special. Also in the fall, the toy company is releasing a book series-available in both print and digitally-written by award-winning author Shannon Hale. There’s also a live-action music video, Facebook page, and Twitter account.
Tween retailer Justice serves as the exclusive retail partner for the franchise during the back-to-school shopping season. “One of the reasons we started [at Justice] was because it was a great opportunity for us to showcase the franchise across multiple categories and product. So toys and consumer products, you could really help kind of tell the larger story in one place at one time,” says Kilpin.
“We expect with Ever After High that girls are interacting with this brand, not just with dolls, but with apparel and accessories and stationery and publishing and electronics,” he says. The franchise expands to other retailers in the U.S. and internationally later this year.
SOURCE: Mattel, Timothy Kilpin, EVP, 333 Continental Blvd., El Segundo, CA 90245; 310-252-2000; tim.kilpin@mattel.com; www.mattel.com.
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