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Like the force, Star Wars merchandise surrounds us all and you might say it binds the fan galaxy together.
Walk into any major chain store this month and you will find stacks of merchandise bearing the Star Wars brand. From action figures to Lego, plush toys and breakfast foods, you can find just about anything with Star Wars this Christmas.
Back in 1977, the original Star Wars toys weren’t ready in time for Christmas.
Corky Steiner is the son of one of the founders of Kenner Toys. At the time, it was a subsidiary company of General Mills, and it was the first company to bet on the Star Wars brand.
Steiner says other companies passed on the chance to license toys for the new science fiction movie with a funny name like Star Wars with characters that had names that were even funnier like R2D2 and C3P0.
“The company took a chance and they took a chance on a movie because a movie was usually a flash in the pan – here today, gone tomorrow,” he said. “Well we all know that that’s not the case and that’s the origin of Kenner and Star Wars. That was in 1977 and the rest is history.”
The movie came out in the spring of 1977, leaving very little time for Kenner Toys to produce figurines in time for Christmas.
“We wanted to try to make articulated figures and those articulated figures were actually something that had never been done in the toy industry at the size that we were going to do them which is about the size of your finger,” Steiner explained.
The figures were small because the toy company president wanted them to fit inside the toy vehicles. Those tiny figures had to be sculpted and approved by LucasFilm before they could be mass produced. The solution to the problem was to basically create an ‘I owe you’ certificate for the toys.
“They decided to ship a special deal for kids who wanted to be the first on their block to buy Star Wars figures,” Steiner explained. “They bought them blind and later, after Christmas received the first on their block Star Wars figures.”
Lisa Watson is a marketing professor at the University of Regina and she considers the Star Wars brand to be a marketing phenomenon. She still marvels at the risk the toy company took to invest in the license for a movie that no one knew was going to be a hit.
“It was quite risky I would think at the time to really take that step and make the movie part of the household,” said Watson, who also happens to be a Star Wars fan.
“It was one of the first movies that really allowed that blending and allowed the fan to become one with the film and really experience it hands on.”
Watson says before Star Wars, action figures from movies weren’t really a big deal at all. But this science fiction franchise changed all the rules, including the unspoken rule that toys are just for kids.
“What they’ve done really well over time, that I think makes them so iconic now, is that they’ve grown with their fans and they’ve grown with the family,” Watson said.
She understands the appeal. In fact, Watson and her husband happen have an eclectic collection of Star Wars memorabilia ranging from Lego sets to Mr. Potato heads and a Lego Millennium Falcon. She says that model is complicated and marketed for true collectors, while other models are simple enough to build with kids.
Watson says Disney buying the Star Wars franchise is kind of a perfect fit from a marketing perspective: the force of advertising is strong with both companies.