#othxrstar

[ptw30]

Regarding that post of "my friend told me dw is mad about the large female audience" whether that's true or not, what option do you think would be best for DW to take in this position? making another reboot where the messages and writing this audience hated so much can finally be fixed? so they can relaunch their merch and target it more towards women? Or maybe making this reboot more appealing to men and succed with their "boy toys" and "boy property"? (1/4)

Though i just see this last one failing miserably, they already tried it once and it didn’t work. I might be young (and correct me if i’m wrong) but fandom culture seems pretty female dominated to me? Like even people outside of the binary gender (a minority group in the current society) seem to overtake the few men who engaged in the fandoms I’ve been before. (2/4) 

It might be cause I only get into cartoon fandoms and that doesn’t appeal to adult men as much as it does to adult women, it might be cause of the misogynistic “ew! a crazy fangirl” view, probably fandoms are safe places for oppressed groups or they simply have different interests than mine. (¾)

I’m sure there’re more factors at play but whatever it is, DW is just wasting their time trying to appeal to a small part of their audience when they already had this large group (which is pretty diverse in gender and orientation) and they could win us back if they try. This shouldn’t be looked as a disappointment but more like an opportunity (um wtf DW??) But how do you think they should take that step? (srry for the rant, got some strong feelings about this) 

First, can I interest you in a cookie? Maybe get your mind off me writing an entire marketing plan for DreamWorks? 

Before we go into “boys property” - we need to note that brands don’t focus one target market.

When I headed four brands, each brand had primary, secondary, and even tertiary markets. For our main brand, we had six target segments, three primary. Did we care about the others? Yeah, but we didn’t highlight them half as much in marketing campaigns or collateral. 

That means that most likely, Voltron wasn’t a “boys” franchise, so much as one of the target markets DreamWorks wanted to hit were boys, ages 7 to 15. Their secondary market was probably older males who had seen the original series, and either a secondary or tertiary market was older female viewers who also watched DotU.

I need to note - I used to wear Voltron shirts all the time. When I wore VLD shirts, I heard from girls, generally 18-30. Almost all had a favorite character and knew the next season drop date.

When I wore DotU shirts, I heard from guys. When I asked the men, “Hey, do you like the new show?” every single one told me they’d never heard of it.

Now, fandom, as a whole, DreamWorks probably doesn’t care about. No, really. Fandom can make their fanart, celebrate the story, whatever floats their boat; DreamWorks doesn’t care. 

What DreamWorks cares about is sales. (They don’t even care about viewership if they’re distributing through Netflix because Netflix releases no numbers. All DW cares about is that Netflix orders more episodes.)

So are the toys selling? No. Then that’s not working. Are the shirts selling? Yeah? Oh, maybe we need to focus there. Who is buying the shirts?

But it’s actually hard to say for sure what’s working when all we know for sure is what’s not working. We can assume by the sudden increase in T-shirt stock on Hot Topic, especially those in women sizes, that these shirts are selling. We can also assume from Amazon having every single shirt in every single style - men, women, and children - that those shirts are selling. 

I can also tell you from my sister and mom’s holiday shopping experience that Hot Topic says they cannot keep VLD merchandise on the shelf. I’m not sure if that’s factual or just the ramblings of an overzealous seller. 

My point is - from the data we can see, we can assume that women are the majority viewership and it’s women with disposal income, 18-40, or so.

(I also want to note, I actually like the cut of a men’s shirts better.)

However, we don’t know that Voltron isn’t engaging with young male viewers, just that young male viewers seemingly aren’t buying merchandise. And as someone with at least seven different toys from VLD - I can tell you women are. 

So what does that mean for DreamWorks? 

There are a few factors that will determine what DreamWorks will do or has decided to do going forward. Most likely, they are going to want a variety of series, each one with a focused set of primary markets. So whether any new Voltron series will want to hit the “boys market” depends on if any other show in DreamWorks’ hopper is set to hit the boys’ market. I’m sure currently 3Below and potentially Fast & Furious are the supposed to hit those markets, so if they’re looking to making money on toy sales - well, F&F probably has the most potential. 

However, as @nomadicism can tell you in more detail, the toy market is effectively broken, and Voltron did suffer from distribution issues. (The videos from last year’s Toy Fair confirm this.) So I would need to see DreamWorks’ toy sales to know for sure if that’s even something worth pursuing. 

Ignoring that for just a moment - recent thought leadership in marketing is looking at agile delivery methods and strategies. Therefore, if DreamWorks stumbled upon a lucrative target market with disposal income, then yes - they should want to milk that and they should have the infrastructure to switch target markets and merchandise - not on a dime but in an acceptable time frame. And they have.  

However, as @sol1056 wrote earlier this week - it really depend on the person - or demographic - making the decisions, which will say whether marketing and merchandising will want to focus on women as a target market, despite or because of their monetary value. 

After all, Young Justice had a large female fanbase. That was the reason Cartoon Network cancelled the show, and from what I’ve seen from the Season 3 thus far, the EPs focused hard on trying to gain that male market they originally didn’t lure the first two seasons. In doing so, they lost me, at least, as a viewer. 

Going forward - what should DreamWorks do?

Young Justice just started streaming this month, so it’s hard to say if this darker turn will affect the story going forward. It’s hard to say if the darker start can’t be changed by a fulfilling ending to the season. What I can say is - Greg Weisman said earlier this week that the show hasn’t been greenlit for a fourth season. (It’s also on DCU, which no doubt has a smaller viewership than Netflix.)

While women dominate the fandom, the question remains - are they buying? If women really are shilling out dough for VLD merchandise (*looks at her Shiro shirts*), then DreamWorks execs should take notice and decide, “This is where we should throw our lot with any sequel.”

I can’t go much into details without getting too personal, but CEOs are beginning to create strategy from social media, thanks to Millennials. (That’s not to say that letters or calls to DreamWorks aren’t weighed more heavily because they are.)  Millennials want a personalized online experience. They want to engage with media on their own terms, an experience crafted toward their preferences, and they live with a mini-computer in their hands. They live on social media, though that, too, is dominated by women. 

But CEOs see social media posts as not having a filter, and though I have serious misgivings about taking social medias as the only source of research, I’m sure DreamWorks is doing or has done professional market research. They know what products are selling, whose buying them, and what these people want to see, in order to encourage them buy more. 

It’s telling that the only shirts ever produced for VLD, especially their newest ones - 

- all have the paladins and their symbols, after supposedly the lore was discarded after Season 2. 

Ignoring that the lore might be coming back - Marketing has created only a handful of new shirts post-Season 2 with a different paladin line-up - the majority of which were Monster & Mana designs and one shirt with Allura in the split screen. 

NOTHING AGAINST ALLURA. I just mean that seemingly, either merchandising doesn’t think post-Season 2 formations won’t sell or they tested in some way and know they won’t sell. Or they aren’t even willing to try, seeing the fandom backlash from later seasons. 

But if shirts are selling - and they appear to be, by the number of styles - are those numbers or projected numbers enough to forgo a “boys’ market” and focus all efforts on a primary target market of women? 

Considering DreamWorks already made the decision to make Hyperphase Voltron a con exclusive and go from selling less than twenty shirts on HT to more than 100 items, to go from selling few shirts on Amazon to uploading new ones in April and October 2018, and January 2019 - I think the question isn’t if DW should focus on women. 

That’s why I question the anon who said that DreamWorks is contemplating what to do with their series - since DreamWorks seems to have completed market research, selected a new primary target market, and made drastic changes to merchandising in order to reach that target market - women. 

Now, DreamWorks just need to focus on expanding that market, and how do they do that?

With new content that speaks to that market, or y’know, a fix-it sequel.  

[midoriyasbones]

before I go watch the last season, i just wanna say thank you, jules. i never got the courage to talk to you off anon but i want you to know that you are really important to this fandom, you inspired me with your posts, fics, headcanons, even your shitposts, dudeee you need to get lots of those in the making when the fandom blows up today. (1/3)

i can see you’re an awesome and really thoughtful person, i hope you get a blast tonight while watching s8 and wish the fandom don’t disturbe your mood whatever it happens in the end, whatever side “wins” or “loses”, i wanna let you know you’ll overcome it. (2/3) 

also, my last wish for christmas and kl is can they just talk?? and fix their miscommunication problems?? and make peace with their past and stop acting like idiots????? like be good friends, go form those turbo wings like the soulmates they are and then hug after battle? ps: laith was, is and always will be the superior ship name, ty. (3/3)                       

hello love, thank you so much for this thoughtful ask, it means a lot to me to hear this, especially in wake of s8. i’m so happy you got so much joy out of what i created, and i had a lot of fun creating those things. knowing i got to spread that feeling is incredible. i hope you enjoyed s8!

and yeah, im glad they did talk. they talked a lot and had some great moments this season, and again, that’s all i could ever ask for. i’ve loved watching their relationship grow and change, and i’m glad i got to take so many people on this journey with me, and i can’t wait to take them on another!

[ptw30]

I don't know if you're still on board with the conspiracy theory (not that conspiracish by now i guess) about DW making another Voltron production but did you see Mitch Iverson's tweet from a week ago "celebrating something secret"? My guess: it's just the 4th comic volumen, my wild guess: they're really making another show. It's pretty ambiguous anyways but just wanted you to know

Still on board. Thanks for saying you’re still on board because regarding a belief in a sequel, this was me - 

(Well, not really. There’s about four other people I know who are on board still, but I liked the gif.)

Essentially, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes, and there’s a lot we’ll probably never know. But considering VAs won’t answer questions about the final season yet are continuing to attend cons, there are designers posting as per a content calendar, and…well, if you watched the SacAnime panel, one fan asked, “Will we see more of [blank],” and the answer was not, “The series is over, so no.” The VA’s response was, “I don’t write the show, so I can’t say.”

…the show is over. What is there to say?

In response to your ask - here’s the tweet for anyone who hasn’t seen it. 

This can be a mean a variety of different things. Mitch is helping to write a new volume of comics or the series sequel to VLD or he got the comics for F&F, or he found a taco in the writers’ room couch and he’s hiding it from the rest of the team. 

We really don’t know. I mean, it could mean anything and it could mean something - but right now, I just go, “Really, man? Come on. You know the VLD fandom is going to eat this up,” which…maybe was his point. XD 

EDIT: My guess - he heard he was being quoted here - The story behind anime localization.