Mattel Creations’ Andrea Carpenter

Andrea Carpenter, senior director of content distribution and programming, talks to TV Kids about the launch of Mattel Creations, distributing to free-TV channels, and the importance of licensing and merchandising for a series.

Mattel Creations is the centralized theatrical, television and digital content division of Mattel that offers broadcasters and parents age-appropriate content, as well as tools for learning and development.

***Image***TV KIDS: Tell us about the launch of Mattel Creations last year.
CARPENTER: I think 2016 was a great year for Mattel and specifically with the advent of Mattel Creations. That’s a new [division] within the Mattel umbrella that is focused on content creation, content distribution and digital platforms. For the first time, we embarked on creating more content than we ever have before. For some of our big brands, like Barbie, we’ve gone into the development of series content—not [just] one series, but two series for Barbie. So I think it was an exciting time for us in ’16, particularly in the back half, because that’s when we started to go out and sell and work with our distribution partners on planning for ’17 and ’18 and beyond for the new slate of content.

TV KIDS: What are the challenges of distributing kids’ content to free-TV channels?
CARPENTER: We have the advantage of having phenomenal preschool brands, like Thomas & Friends and Bob the Builder, so that certainly helps. It’s probably more challenging if you are launching a new property, but those are established brands with long histories, so we’ve been lucky in that space. Though it is still a challenge; it’s a market that requires constant marketing…in order to ensure that you are retaining that very precious space within those free-TV markets.

TV KIDS: How important is licensing and merchandising for a series?
CARPENTER: It is difficult now to be able to say that it’s going to cost $10 million to make this particular series, and then through revenue from distribution of that content you’re going to make back that $10 million. That’s a tall order these days, so I think then it becomes about, Well, what are the other revenue streams that come from creating that brand affinity? If you love Thomas, you want a Thomas toy and you want a Thomas backpack and you want a Thomas T-shirt. And all of those puzzle pieces together make that investment into creating that content make sense.

TV KIDS: Tell us about some of the new titles launching this year.
CARPENTER: We have two Barbie series. We have Dreamtopia, which is more of a fantastical series; it’s based on Barbie’s sister Chelsea and her magical adventures that she goes on. Definitely created for more of the preschool/younger market. And then we have Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures, which looks very much like what most people would be accustomed to seeing from our traditional 75-minute movies that we’ve been doing. That’ll be another series that we’re launching, which we kind of refer to as a family sitcom—fun, a little zany. Ken will be in part of that [with] Barbie and her four sisters, and they live in the house in Malibu. So very traditional Barbie, but I think it’ll be some fun. We have another series of Thomas & Friends. We have a new brand that we’re launching called Enchantimals; we’ll have a 60-minute special of that coming out in the fall. We have a Monster High special for the fall. And of course Max Steel—we have another movie coming out in ’17. So we have a full, really robust slate.

TV KIDS: Barbie is an established brand, obviously, but she’s the prototypical American girl. How do you maintain the essence of the brand while also making it appealing to cultures around the world?
CARPENTER: That’s something that we’ve started to work on, the idea of “you can be anything.” Barbie’s meant to be an avatar of anything a young girl wants to be. She’s meant to be aspirational. When you look at her and her blond hair and blue eyes, it’s ultimately not about what she looks like, it’s about what she can do. And so when a girl plays with her Barbie dolls, she’s acting out what happened in school or what happened on the playground. And ultimately, it’s that interaction they have with the doll, that they see themselves through the doll. As we continue to develop content, it’s more [about the aspirational] idea that Barbie is a veterinarian, she’s an astronaut, she’s a schoolteacher, which is what every young girl could be or not be. So I think it’s more about how we’re developing the character as opposed to the essence of how she looks.

TV KIDS: What are some of Mattel Creations’ plans for the remainder of the year?
CARPENTER: We’re super excited about the amount of content that we have. We’re actually in the enviable position of figuring out, Well, what do we do with all of that content? We also are in competition with ourselves, to some degree, because there are only a certain amount of time slots. So I think for us, we’re going to have to be a little bit creative about how we’re working with the various platforms and what is the difference between something coming on on a Saturday morning versus during the week. That’s a lot of the stuff that we’ll be navigating [for the rest of] ’17, which is a great problem to have.