JoeCanuck
General Section => General Joe Talk => Topic started by: ARROW on November 27, 2011, 05:48:20 PM
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Okay there's something I'm not quite understanding about Pursuit of Cobra....
I opened up a POC Cobra Commander today , Wave 5 or 6 figure I forget, and I made my usual note of all the gear, and of the folded poster item underneath the stand......and there the idea struck.
It occurs to me that Hasbro had all the ingredients of a certain kind of marketing push in place for POC, but for whatever reason did not exploit it.
They have:
-Highly detailed figures.
-Lots of extra accessories.
-Detailed vehicles
-Specific environmental themes and the characters designed largely around those themes.
-Posters with diorama themes promoting the characters in specific situations and storylines.
Does anyone else see the pattern unfolding there?
One of the BIG deals in the early GIJOE toys--the stuff that goes waaay back to the 60's--was the diorama pamphlets. It was a marketing/play pattern angle that fed both the toys, the accessories, and the "hobby" as it pertains to GIJOE collecting. It was clearly diminished in the 80's--although alluded to in the commericals. In the 90's it was non-extistant, and in the return in 2000-ish it was again ignored.
Now, those posters that came with the figures were, in my opinion, a golden opportuinity to push the diorama concept once again. The side with the diorama storyline was great, but the opposite side with the characters facing off against each other seemed like a waste of space---because, after all, after two waves..........most of those characters stopped seeing shelf time.
What I think would have been welcome: Show us an instructional how-to on HOW TO MAKE the diorama on the other side of the sheet. Get collectors engaged in GIJOE again. Like I said above, all the components for this are there in the product line. All it would take is some basic household products, some how-to guidance, and some imagination.
Granted, they would be simplified displays, lacking obvious Photoshop work etc. but like anything of this nature, it'd be a starting point.
The nice thing here is that the instructional material need not be all that different from that back in the 60's. How to make a ground work base, pehaps a hill with paper mache, how to make a fox-hole, trees and foiliage etc. Basic stuff that's the foundation of a diorama, with tips for things more advanced, such as using common items such as plastic tubs for bunkers, small empty pill containers for fuel drums etc.
It would make GIJOE different from any other toy-line out there, and it would follow traditions that GIJOE has had in the past.
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Very valid and well laid out points. I never really thought about it before, but you are correct. There is such great room to improve and borrow from their own past. As it is now, I don't bother with any of those mini posters anymore. They just go into the recycling bin with a thought.
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you should check out the UK ROC comic, they had a feature several months on making diorama bases for your Joe figures.
see the comic archive over at BFTB, in the Panini section.
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Hasbro hasn't even followed through with the storyline for POC. It evolves around the blue container that Cobra Commander comes with.
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Hasbro hasn't even followed through with the storyline for POC. It evolves around the blue container that Cobra Commander comes with.
Well, I just learned something unexpected about that blue container tonite.
It opens!
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Hasbro hasn't even followed through with the storyline for POC. It evolves around the blue container that Cobra Commander comes with.
Well, I just learned something unexpected about that blue container tonite.
It opens!
Haven't even opened mine up yet. No urge until I can plan out my joe room for display.