Matchbox 2012 already out - but looks like Mattel have got it very wrong.....

The MCCH is for me now only used as a point of reference with regards to confirming data and information for the website I run matchbox1-75.co.uk.

it is very rarely these days that I actually read any posts as most of them are totally irrelevant (shade variations, etc...).

However, one member has actually posted a picture of a 2012 1-75 release on a long card.

I have to say that Mattel has got it superbly wrong yet again. Why the re-branding of the MB logo? What was wrong with the lozenge logo?

And the artwork - well, now it has got a little cartooney -

What was wrong with the 2011 packaging? For me, this re-ignited my passion for the brand - the MB logo, the fantastic artwork, the overall presentation. It worked - and worked very well.

But the new direction in branding seems to take us back a little to the Hero City days on 2004 & 2005 - and thus does not seem like the product can be taken seriously. I think Mattel forget that young children don't necessarily like stuff being thrown at them as if they were still 4 years old. Given that some of these little people may actually like the realism as per the 2011 packaging, it is not at all clear what direction Mattel want the brand to take. The days of John Coyne seem to be long gone, and there are only now smatterings of acknowledgements to the root so the brand and heritage. If it ain't broke, don't fix......

It remains to see if these indeed will actually sell. They may well do, so then I eat my words. But I doubt it.

And more to the point, WTF are 2012 models and packaging doing out in October 2011, when we can barely find the actual 1-75 range for 2011 itself?

This is sheer lunacy - Mattel surely have lost the plot a little. Time to make a decision - keep the brand properly going by investing in distribution and getting the product on the shelves, a return to the original packaging as per 2011, and marketing it well. OR just kill it off.

No wonder there is going to be - in say 20 years time - a possible death in the 1/64 scale market. Current collectors may well have stopped, or pass on (to the other side), and then where does that leave it? Technology is changing every single day and will the next generation of children want a 1-75 as a collectable toy OR some new fangled gadget which does far more than a diecast model? My betting is on the latter.

I await to see over 2012 how well this "new packaging" does, but I suspect it may very well bomb. Mattel, I would like you to prove me wrong (but I sincerely doubt it as you simply cannot be arsed).