How Mattel Reaches Kids, Teens and Parents in a YouTube and TikTok World

Summary

Podcast Summary: Next in Media - "How Mattel Reaches Kids, Teens and Parents in a YouTube and TikTok World"

Release Date: April 1, 2025

Host: Mike Shields
Guest: Jason Horowitz, SVP of U.S. Marketing and Global Head of Media and Digital at Mattel

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1. Introduction

In this episode of Next in Media, host Mike Shields engages in a comprehensive discussion with Jason Horowitz, Mattel’s Senior Vice President of U.S. Marketing and Global Head of Media and Digital. With over two decades at Mattel, Jason provides invaluable insights into the evolving landscape of marketing to children, teens, and parents in the digital age.

2. Jason Horowitz’s Role and Mattel’s Brand Portfolio

Jason begins by outlining his extensive role at Mattel, highlighting the diversity and breadth of the company's brand portfolio. Mattel manages over 30 active brands annually, including iconic names such as Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher Price, and Uno. These brands transcend traditional toys, expanding into movies, gaming, and location-based experiences.

Jason Horowitz [02:46]: “What's unique about our brands is yes, they're products and so you have some of the same challenges as running a traditional CPG brand. But they're also entertainment properties that people love.”

3. Evolution of Marketing for Kids and Families

Jason reflects on the significant shifts in marketing strategies over his 20-year tenure. The transition from traditional media to digital platforms has fundamentally changed how Mattel reaches its audiences. He emphasizes the dynamic nature of marketing to children, who are digital natives with rapidly changing behaviors.

Jason Horowitz [05:24]: “Kids are the tip of the sphere in terms of changing their behavior. They just see new experiences and adapt quickly, making our marketing strategies continually evolve.”

4. Traditional TV vs. Digital Media Strategies

While traditional TV remains a component of Mattel’s media mix, its role has diminished due to declining viewership and fragmented audiences. Digital platforms now offer more complex but targeted opportunities to reach both children and their parents.

Jason Horowitz [07:26]: “TV still plays a role, but it's not nearly what it used to be just because of what's going on with ratings. It's still a part of our mix, but a much lower part than it has been.”

5. YouTube and Content Creation

Mattel maintains a robust presence on YouTube, not just as advertisers but as content creators. Jason describes how Mattel produces its own engaging narratives and series to build brand affinity and drive organic viewership.

Jason Horowitz [10:53]: “We have a very robust operation in-house from strategy to creative, production, channel management, and buying to publish and drive viewership on our content series.”

He cites reaching over 6 billion views on YouTube last year alone, showcasing the effectiveness of their content-driven approach.

6. Social Media and Influencer Partnerships

While Mattel engages extensively on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, their primary focus is on targeting shoppers rather than directly marketing to children, adhering to COPPA regulations. Influencer partnerships are leveraged to create authentic content that resonates with the target audience.

Jason Horowitz [15:32]: “We’re partnering with creators who can make authentic content on those platforms and let them handle the messaging for us, sometimes backing it with our own paid initiatives.”

7. Retail Media Insights

Retail media has become a significant part of Mattel’s media strategy, offering valuable data from retailers to inform marketing buys. However, Jason notes the challenge of ensuring incrementality to avoid merely reinforcing existing sales rather than driving new growth.

Jason Horowitz [17:54]: “The biggest opportunity and challenge with retail media is how do you feel confident that you’re driving incrementality.”

8. Marketing to Collectors and Niche Audiences

Beyond targeting children and parents, Mattel also caters to collectors—dedicated fans who purchase products for themselves. This segment allows for niche marketing strategies that are less seasonal and more driven by product releases and community engagement.

Jason Horowitz [21:11]: “For us, that's a completely different way of marketing and finding that audience, focusing on niche communities that are passionate about our brands.”

9. Challenges in Measurement and Attribution

Measuring the effectiveness of digital campaigns remains a complex issue, especially in targeting children. Jason explains that digital advertising for kids often results in less precise targeting and reduced reach compared to traditional TV.

Jason Horowitz [19:15]: “For kids, in some ways digital is less precise and it also gets you less reach. You have to build an orchestra of media planning and buying to match the effectiveness we used to get more easily.”

10. The Importance of Creative in Media Strategy

Jason stresses that in an era of media fragmentation, the quality of creative content is paramount. Effective storytelling and compelling creative assets are essential to capture the attention of digitally savvy children amidst a plethora of choices.

Jason Horowitz [23:23]: “A media plan is only as good as the creative that you put into it. We need to ensure our creative, whether it's content or advertising, is more impactful to drive unit sales.”

11. Future of Marketing: Gen AI and Automation

Looking ahead, Mattel is exploring the integration of generative AI and automation to enhance creative processes. While still in the early stages, these technologies hold potential for improving internal ideation and optimizing content creation.

Jason Horowitz [25:41]: “We're using AI tools more for our internal ideation to help with the creative process, and as these tools improve, we’ll integrate them appropriately with our creative teams.”

12. Conclusion and Final Insights

Throughout the conversation, Jason highlights the necessity of adaptability and innovation in marketing to young audiences. As digital landscapes continue to evolve, Mattel remains committed to leveraging diverse media strategies, focusing on compelling creative content, and maintaining compliance with regulatory standards to effectively engage their multifaceted audience.

Jason Horowitz [25:29]: “Whatever you're doing has to really grab their intention and inspire their imagination, making sure it's as competitive as everything else they're experiencing.”

Mike Shields wraps up the episode by acknowledging the depth of Jason’s insights, emphasizing the strategic complexity involved in modern media marketing for a diverse consumer base.

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Key Takeaways:

• Diverse Brand Portfolio: Managing over 30 brands with cross-category presence.
• Digital Transformation: Shifting focus from traditional TV to digital platforms like YouTube.
• Content-Driven Strategy: Producing original content to build brand affinity organically.
• Targeted Social Media Marketing: Engaging shoppers through compliant strategies on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
• Retail Media Challenges: Balancing data-driven buys with the need for incremental sales.
• Niche Audience Engagement: Catering to collectors with specialized marketing approaches.
• Creative Excellence: Prioritizing high-quality creative content to stand out in a crowded digital marketplace.
• Embracing AI: Exploring generative AI tools to enhance creative ideation and production.

This episode provides a nuanced understanding of how a legacy toy company like Mattel navigates the rapidly changing media and marketing landscape to remain relevant and engaging across multiple generations and audiences.

Transcript

[Mike Shields]

Collaboration is a new competition. The One Audience alliance by Elemental TV unites premium publishers to tackle CTV's biggest challenge, fragmentation. By collaborating over AI powered audience insights and inventory, we're creating an ecosystem where advertisers win, publishers thrive and audiences stay engaged. Join The Movement Redefining [e-mail] One audiencealliance that's E L E M E N T a l t v.com Oneaud I e n C E A A L L I A N C E this week on NEXT in Media, I sat down with Jason Horowitz. He's the SVP of U.S. marketing and Global head of media and digital at Mattel. In an industry where marketing execs jumping around with regularity, Jason's actually eclipsed 20 years at Mattel. A tenure during which pretty much everything about his job and the way brands can reach kids, teens and parents has radically changed. In fact, Jason's job isn't just to market Mattel's brands, but to actually push out original programming. Looking at land distribution deals with top TV providers while even driving traffic to his own fast channels. It's a fun, fascinating conversation. So let's get started. Hi everybody. Welcome to nexty Media. I'm Mike Shields. My guest this week is Jason Horowitz. He's the SVP of global head of media and marketing at Mattel. Hey Jason, thanks for being here. Hi Michael.

[Jason Horowitz]

Thank you for having me. Looking forward to talking with you.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, I'm psyched because you are seemingly fun, really interesting, different brand. But I think I really people don't always maybe realize you are work on a lot of brands with different targets. Give us like a little bit of like what your job entails. What is it all kids? Is it a whole bunch of brands? What does it look like? And then I'd love to get into your story a little bit.

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. So Mattel is a really interesting and fun company in that regard. So we have a portfolio of brands across lots of different categories. Some of like what we like to say, the leading IP of any company. But so probably our most famous and iconic brands are Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher Price, Uno. We have a portfolio of IP. We're probably in any given year actively marketing around 30 different brands. Okay, that's a lot of all the categories in the toys. And then of course our brands are more than just toys. They're also intellectual properties where we have movies and gaming and location based experiences and things like that. And then one of the things that I love from a marketing and a media Standpoint is what's unique about our brands is yes, they're products and so you have some of those kind of same challenges and opportunities as running a traditional CPG brand. But they're also these brands that people love. So they're also kind of like entertainment properties as well, right?

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, every brand has a story, but yours really do have like, you know, content and as you said, ip. Like they're more than just a product in that sense.

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah. And they mean a lot to people in terms of the audiences you asked me. Right. So for our typical brand, like you take a Barbie or Hot Wheels, our target, or the end users who are, who are the kids. Right. Then we also target what we call our shoppers, which is really anyone buying those toys for the end user. Oftentimes that's parents, but of course it could be aunts, uncles for another birthday, or grandparents. And then in addition, like, I think the other thing that's cool about our brands is what we call is our fans. So there's a huge community of people, whether it's Hot Wheels or Masters of the Universe or Barbie, where they're actually buying products for themselves. You know what, what maybe you would call collectors, and that's in toys, but that's also in other categories of goods.

[Mike Shields]

Right. So all those, and we'll get into it, all those have different strategies, budgets, goals, all that kind of stuff, which is pretty interesting. So you have an, you have a kind of an interesting story. You're not, you're not like the typical, I don't know if there is a typical ladder climb kind of path for you for your role, but tell us how you got to where you are.

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah, it is a cool story. So I actually interned for Mattel between my first and second year of business. I was a east coaster and moved out to California. I thought for a couple years to get my MBA at ucla. I was going to move back to New York where I was originally from, but I got an internship at Mattel and I loved it. They made me a full time offer and now I settled here and so I started as an associate marketing manager over 20 years ago and have taken all kinds of different roles along the way to get to where I am now.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, your LinkedIn is actually very consistent, which is extremely rare in this industry. So that is kind of different. But that must have been, that must have been a tough internship to get.

[Jason Horowitz]

I'm imagining probably, you know, I, I had worked for ABC Sports Online before I got to business school, so I think that made me stand out a little bit. And then honestly, like, one of the things that I love about working at Mattel is the people that attract. Like for me, I was like, ooh, I want to work on these brands that have those challenges in multiple audiences, but also, you know, toys and it's, it's a fun category to work in.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah. Speaking of that, you've seen it change radically, as has all media. But I think you're on the front lines of change when you're working. K. I actually started my career I was an assistant media planner at an agency and I worked on Lego and Burger King Kids. So like, I have some sense of this is like back in the late 90s, but you know, back then life was all about Nickelodeon and the Hard Eight, which was like the last two months before Christmas. I know things have radically changed, but what's like been the biggest change in your career in terms of how do you reach these targets and what matters?

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah, I mean, I think when you think of change and it's a dynamic media marketplace for everyone in all categories, but like you said, when you're targeting kids, I would argue it's maybe even more dynamic because kids are the tip of the sphere in terms of changing their behavior. Right. So like, for me, I was hesitant to change from the service that I had used for many years to streaming. Whereas for a new kid, you know, they're just like, hey, this is a better experience. This is what I'm doing. So yeah, you're absolutely right. Like the way to market, you know, 20 years ago or when you were involved for kids was you made a great TV commercial and you ran that TV commercial on, you know, primarily kid cable in this country and that worked really well. What's changed is it's more complex and there's much more things we have to do in order to try to reach kids now. Right. I think that's one big component of it. But then like, the other thing that's changed too, at the same time that that's become more complex is the out of pocket costs of reaching adults have also gone down a little bit. So there's also some opportunities to market to shoppers that we maybe used to not do in some of our primarily kid targeted brands.

[Mike Shields]

Interesting. So you could have theoretically targeted adults early on, but it would have been national television costly kind of things. But you can really zero in on those targets in a way that you could not a long time ago. That's interesting.

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah. And when you were marketing a brand that primarily, like once the kids were old enough to ask for the, the toy, almost all of your marketing went in that direction. And then when we had younger brands where maybe the kids weren't going to ask like a Fisher Price, all of your marketing went to adults and you write it to market to adults. Back then you would have to do a national buy and that was pretty expensive. What's interesting is what's, and we could talk about like how it's different in digital in both places. Now digitally you could reach shoppers on social platforms or other things with smaller out of pocket. And then for kids it's become more complex.

[Mike Shields]

Right. I want to get into those complexities, but I'm just curious. Does, does TV still play a central role for kids or is it, is it really secondary because of their habits?

[Jason Horowitz]

It still plays a role, but it's not nearly what it used to be just because of what's going on with ratings. So it's still a part of our mix, but a much lower part of the mix than it's been. And part of the reason why is even though the viewership has really changed, you know, it's still, still very efficient. Like you could still get reach quickly and good CPMs for the kids who are watching TV.

[Mike Shields]

I'm jumping around a little bit here, but when it comes to digital. I know and I want to get into the different strategies you have, but you know, it's a little bit of a. I think people are often confused about what brands are and aren't allowed to do with children, with coppa, with influencers. That's a big, it's a big broad question. But how does digital work for your brands? Like what, what can, what kind of targeting can you not do? What do you have to stay away from? Like, what does that look like?

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah, I mean, I think the simplest way to think about it without getting into too much detail is, you know, you're not really using any pii, you know, and, and you're not really tracking. Right. So what that means is from a targeting standpoint, you are doing things that are more like affinity based or based on the media where you're running or advertising. It's not based on the child or the end user and we're fully supportive of that. So we're, we're always compliant with all those rules and we're cautious in that way because, you know, we support protecting children's privacy. But there are things that we do try to do to make sure that we're putting our messages in front of the right person. So you could do things like on YouTube, they have content packs or, you know, you're like, okay, this content is probably a younger child, this content is probably an older child. And you try to do your, your buys that way.

[Mike Shields]

Right. And so, yeah, in a weird way, you don't have to worry about all this, like cookie changes and these new identifiers and all those things. It's not, it's not really your domain.

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah, that's true. That is the positive, the positive flip side that that wasn't our domain and we weren't ever doing that for kids. So the change there is less impactful.

[Mike Shields]

Okay, so let's talk about YouTube. Everyone who has kids knows how big YouTube is for children. YouTube also has a YouTube Kids subscription app that I think, I think in the past they probably wanted to have those two worlds completely separated. There's a lot of blurring. How do you approach it? Do you have to heavy up with, you know, certain kids safe content on YouTube? Can you work with creators directly? Do you have to put some brands Only on the YouTube Kids property? What does that look like?

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah, I would say our YouTube partnership is very strong and very deep. And one thing you didn't say there that I'll start with is for us, we have a, a huge presence on YouTube from a content standpoint.

[Mike Shields]

Right. So we're different than a lot of brands, I'm sure.

[Jason Horowitz]

Right? Different than a lot of brands. And that's where, going back to what I said in the beginning is, what's fun about our brands is they're both IP and their entertainment properties, and we happen to make products. Right. So when you think of the way that I think of it is kids are on YouTube a lot. Right. It's the number one streaming service for kids. Right. So we want to show up there with our brands telling stories and narrative content that build love for our characters and build love for our world. So we have a very robust operation in house all the way from strategy to creative, to production, to channel management, to buying, just to kind of publish and drive viewership on our content series that we do around each of our brands.

[Mike Shields]

That's not advertising per se. It's like you're a programmer in that sense that's promoting their shows that it has an impact on your brand. Is that the right way to look up, think about it?

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah, that is the right way to think about it. The way I would think about it. Maybe for some of your listeners, from the context, it's almost like brand affinity. Right. It's like top of the funnel kind of, you know, it's like getting people to love our characters and our world and to tell stories. The really positive thing that I would argue that's changed over time with YouTube as it's become bigger and bigger for kids content consumption is they have some really positive guidelines that I love about the value of that content. So you're asking a little bit. I'm jumping around too, if it's okay. You're asking a little bit about like influencers and creators. That's much less important to us on YouTube than it used to be because there's things of that probably a lot of people outside of the kids space think about like unboxing.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, my mind goes to Ryan's world or unboxing kids. That's mostly what everyone does, but not necessarily.

[Jason Horowitz]

And that's really not favored by the algorithm anymore because they want the content to be content that has value and is telling stories, that's inspiring kids imagination and making a positive impact. And almost all of our content is designed to do that. And that's what's going to drive viewership. I mean, the easiest way to think about it, I would almost think it's the same thing as making a show that, you know, years ago would have been running on a kid's cable network. Right. It's the same thing. We're making content and we're hoping that kids love our content and want to watch it organically. And you know, we're also putting a little paid behind it to make sure that that flywheel works.

[Mike Shields]

Is there a good example you can share of that?

[Jason Horowitz]

Oh, man. I mean, so many examples. I forget. We got well over a billion views of our own content on YouTube last year. I think it was 6 billion was the number. But every year on Barbie, we do a number of different series. Hot Wheels, we have Barney content that we just did Thomas across our whole portfolio. Polly Pocket. Yeah. Thomas the. Thomas the Train engine.

[Mike Shields]

I could sing that song for the rest of my life. My kids didn't remember. It's funny, right?

[Jason Horowitz]

And every year it's really fun. Every year we come up with, you know, we see what's going on on the platform, what's trending with what kids are doing, what are our objectives with storytelling around our brands. Then we come up with a whole content slate for that year that we're developing and publishing over the course of the year. Right. So that's. Was that a good example to that help?

[Mike Shields]

That's a great example. Do you also. And I'm now going to Left turn. But what I imagine there's an opportunity to get those shows on. The whole fast universe is like, is hungry for programming. It would seem to lend itself to this. Are you experimenting There we are.

[Jason Horowitz]

And we've launched some fast channels recently. What's important there is you have to aggregate the right amount of content to have a streaming channel. But I agree with you. I think that's a great way. The way that I look at that is that's a great way to increase the reach of our content. And we've definitely bundled our content into some different channels and are in launch some fast channels or edit in our conversations to launch more.

[Mike Shields]

Right. So you're like a marketer, a media guy, a network, network programmer, distribution person. That's pretty interesting.

[Jason Horowitz]

Also, obviously we advertise on YouTube, right? So YouTube is a distribution channel for us, for our advertising. I, I find that to be super fun and interesting as well, because there's so many different things you could experiment about running your ads. Skippable, non skippable, different ways to target that are compliant. So that's, that's a huge component of what we do as well.

[Mike Shields]

Is that still super holiday season centric in terms of your strategy or not necessarily.

[Jason Horowitz]

Yes, that's certainly the focus. So we're a very seasonal industry. Right. I mean the, the weeks leading up to Christmas are obviously our biggest sale. So. So yes, but you know, we, we advertise. It's, it's aligned with what's going on with the retail distribution or what are our initiatives. So, you know, we do some stuff in the spring and then, you know, earlier in the season. But yeah, we definitely want to win.

[Mike Shields]

Q4 now when it comes to like the content on YouTube and the ad programs, you so many creators look to distribute in like four or five different places, even if they're YouTube centric. Do you want to touch Instagram and TikTok? Is that, is that a danger zone for some of your brands? Like, what does that approach like?

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah, so we're very effective on all of the social channels, but it's always targeting our shoppers, going back to how I described the audience or our fans. Right. So we don't, we don't target kids on any of the social platforms because they're supposed to be 13 plus and, and we're compliant with that. But yes, we, we have. You know, I think one of the things given media fragmentation, I'm sure all of your guests talk about this is like owned and earned is more important than ever before. I would argue because no one has enough money to make the impact that you want on the business just through paid.

[Mike Shields]

No. And you've got three different targets, so it's even harder.

[Jason Horowitz]

Exactly. So for us, like, you know, you could take Barbie as a great example. We have a couple of different Barbie handles on Instagram that are for our fans. One more about style, one more about the brand. And we're programming those full year to kind of drove on and earn. Sometimes we're boosting. And then in addition, we also do separate paid advertising campaigns across all the social platforms where we're advertising to those shoppers. Right. And it's either kind of aligned with the items that we're trying to drive demand with the kids, or it's also aligned with kind of seasonal occasions, whether it's Easter or gift giving and things like that. What I think is really interesting in that space is some of that are the assets that we're making ourselves. But that's also where you hear influencers and creators. And for us, I really like, we're doing a lot with creators, where we're partnering with people who can make content that is more authentic on those platforms and let them kind of do the messaging for us. In certain instances, we're using creators and then putting our own paid behind it. And then in addition to that, we're also doing what I think is more traditional influencer marketing where we're partnering with people, have a very large audience and, you know, having them create content and aligning on the messaging where we're trying to capture their audience.

[Mike Shields]

Given your, your, your shopper target. Are, are you. Have you pushed BIG into retail media last couple years? Is that like a whole different ball of wax? What's up?

[Jason Horowitz]

Yes, and yes, we have pushed BIG into it and it is a whole different ball of wax. What, what's interesting about retail media for a company like us, where most of our sales are not D2C and occur at retail, is there's some interesting data within that retailer that you could bring to bear on your buy, whether it's like a search or a display buy. So that is a really big component of our media mix. And that's one of those things that I would say happened very quickly and is a big dramatic change. And we're always working to learn and optimize our approaches. There's the thing that I think as a marketer is the biggest opportunity and challenge with retail media is how do you feel confident that you're driving incrementality.

[Mike Shields]

I was just going to say it's probably very tempting to all of a sudden your career. You get this like closed loop attribution. Wow, this is awesome. Why wouldn't do all my, you know, put all my dollars there. But that's going to take away from what you're trying to build on all these other channels. And how do you know that that's stuff that would happen already?

[Jason Horowitz]

Well, that's the last thing that's interesting for us for a lot of our brands. You could take Barbie Dreamhouse as a great illustrative example. It's the number one selling toy in the toy category. It's an iconic toy. We spend a lot of money marketing that every year. Right. If you're not careful in retail media and you buy that search term and then someone clicks on that search term, you know, when they're searching for that, they're spear phishing. Because of the market I've done elsewhere, you know, the roas would be through the roof, Right, right.

[Mike Shields]

I killed it this quarter.

[Jason Horowitz]

Right? Exactly. And you would spend millions of dollars just on that item and you'd be like, oh my God, this is the most amazing roas. But you're driving no incrementality there. Right. So it's really interesting in how you get in and you know, you have to do some stuff to protect your quote unquote shelf space in the digital environment. But for me it's really about thinking of those consumer journeys. How do we intercept those journeys to either get them to buy our brand or toy that they maybe otherwise wouldn't have, or getting them to trade up or. So that's a really interesting space that I think is still, still in its early stages and they're going to continue to evolve.

[Mike Shields]

Besides incrementality, which I think everyone is sort of challenged by, you know, everybody in digital media both loves the fact that they have more data and analytics than ever and you know, sort of grumbles about measurement isn't perfect or these are the gaps I have to face. Is it similar in kids? Is it even more challenging? What's like, what's kind of unique about that, that area for you?

[Jason Horowitz]

I think it's challenging in kids. And I'll give you the, the, what I think is the most compelling example, right, is when we used to buy tv, right. You had independent measurement in Nielsen ratings and you would only pay for the target audience that you wanted, right? So let's say I was doing a campaign for girls 6 to 11 or whatever. Like you were paying for the girl 6, 11. When you buy digitally, you're paying for P2 plus. Right. And so there's that and then expected trade off.

[Mike Shields]

Because you think digital is always more precise, but.

[Jason Horowitz]

Exactly. So that's the really interesting thing, and it took me a while to realize that, is that for kids, in some ways digital is less precise.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah.

[Jason Horowitz]

And it also gets you less reach. Right. So that's where, you know, we're trying to build competitive advantage by really having all these different methodologies for how we're calculating our reach, how we're measuring and optimizing our partners and our buys and what they're delivering. And it's almost like you have to build this orchestra of media planning and buying to get to where you used to get to pretty easily. So that complexity could create competitive advantage if you're able to take advantage of it.

[Mike Shields]

So that when you say that orchestra, is that like, I imagine you can just find one vendor that can do that? Is that like something very custom that you've built with a bunch of different partners?

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah. Meaning like, you know, you have to buy from multiple partners for streaming. You know, you have to buy for multiple partners and all those other areas. We want to show up for kids on YouTube. Right. We have all different partners that we buy from and we're always experimenting every year. And the top performers stay and the bottom performers, we replace them with someone the next year. And kind of continually optimizing.

[Mike Shields]

All right, tell me about the. It's interesting, the collector target. I'm guessing there's less seasonality. It's less about the holidays and more always on, but maybe less commerce driven. I don't know. Like, what does that look like? Are the trends different? And how do you. How do you refer to those folks?

[Jason Horowitz]

Yes, it's different and it's a great business. I love that because that's where we talked a lot about the challenges kind before with kids and reach. Right. And we have brands that have broad appeal. That's why there are iconic brands that are number one in their category. What's great about the collector business is you're talking about kind of niche audiences that love that property. Now, by niche, I don't mean necessarily small, but I mean they're a community, right?

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jason Horowitz]

And so you can effectively market to that community with good owned and earned content. And in many instances, we find just from doing primary around a product drop, that'll work really well. But then you could also target your paid more. But to answer your question, what's cool about that business is it's not necessarily seasonal. It's really more driven by the product drops themselves. So we've seen. We've built this really great business on Mattel creations. It's our D2C business. And we find that when we put a product drop on there, we'll do a Hot Wheels car. It will literally sell out in 60 seconds, three minutes. So it's about product drops, and people come in and buy those product drops. In addition, we've also trained or not trained. We've. We have people who love these brands, and there's a whole dynamic of people who go to retail and look for stuff. Like, one thing a lot of people don't know for Hot Wheels, there's a huge community of Hot Wheels fans out there. And there are people who are so passionate about this. They become friends with the store managers.

[Mike Shields]

Like, they want to know when stuff's hitting, and they'll literally go to the.

[Jason Horowitz]

Store before it opens to the public and see if they could, like, go through the MasterCard ends before they're put out on the pegs to find certain cars. And we have that passion for lots of different brands in our portfolio, and that's a really fun area to market in. That's completely different, you know, like, for other companies. That's like their whole business. So for us, that's a completely different way of marketing and finding that audience.

[Mike Shields]

That's pretty wild. I'm not sure if I'm frightened by those guys or impressed.

[Jason Horowitz]

Well, we love them.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah, of course. Just to kind of maybe wrap things up, you know, people, like, make these generalizations about, you know, Gen Alpha is this and Gen Z is this. What do people maybe not understand about the modern kid or either their media habits or their consumer preferences or just something kind of unique about. It's a world that you might understand that a lot of marketers don't.

[Jason Horowitz]

Oh, that's a really good question about what don't other people understand? I think for everyone in this digital environment, there's just much more choice. And so what I would say the journey that I've been on and the leader of what I'm responsible for is I. Initially, my focus was really on the media side of things. And how do we change our media buys? How do we have the right plans, how do we have the right partners.

[Mike Shields]

To build back, get that reach of frequency right?

[Jason Horowitz]

And I feel like I have the flywheel going on that, and that's. That that'll continue to be a focus. But the thing that I've really realized that I think is more important than ever is the Actual creative itself. And in this era of fragmentation, I think people can have a tendency to really focus on the media buy and the partners and kind of looking at the metrics. But a media plan is only as good as the creative that you put into it. And so the thing that I'm really focused on now moving forward is how do we continue to make our creative, whether it's our content and our narrative storytelling or our advertising, even more impactful? Because if the reality is that you might reach a little bit less people than than you used to, but you want to grow your unit sales, that means that every time someone sees an advertisement or someone enjoys one of your content, it has to be x percent more persuasive than it was before if you're going to grow. So for me, that's the frontier that I'm really excited about now of figuring out ways and structures of how can we make our creative even more impactful. And to answer your question, to translate that to kids, the thing is like, they just have so much choice. There's just so much choice. So your stuff has to really grab their intention, but you still have the opportunity to inspire them and inspire their imagination. And that's what I think is exciting is people living in this digital world and they're digital natives. A you have to make sure whatever you're doing is as competitive as every other thing that's in there.

[Mike Shields]

Yeah.

[Jason Horowitz]

And that's the thing that a lot of people sometimes forget. It's like, oh, this is incrementally better than what my company did before. So therefore it's good and the kid will like it. And that's not true.

[Mike Shields]

No, no.

[Jason Horowitz]

It has to be competitive with everything else that that kid is experiencing. And I love that because that sets a really high bar and it makes us, you know, always trying to nail it.

[Mike Shields]

It's probably that much better.

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah, exactly.

[Mike Shields]

Given the importance of creative and the need to like optimizing, I would think that you're a prime candidate for gen AI and automation. But then, I don't know, with this target, you might, it might be so important to have creative control. Like where are you guys in that journey if you're on it?

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah, we are on the journey. Like everyone, I think, you know, we're looking at those tools as it relates to like some of our content creation and our narrative storytelling. And I would say for some of the things we need to do, they're not quite there yet. So I would say that where we're using it the most right now is almost more for our internal ideation and to help with that creative process. Right. And then as the tools continue to improve, we'll do that in a way that's appropriate with our relationships kind of in the IP community and, you know, the creatives that exist.

[Mike Shields]

Makes sense.

[Jason Horowitz]

Yeah.

[Mike Shields]

Super interesting. Anyway, Jason, awesome stuff. Thank you for taking so much time out here. And let's, let's chat again someday.

[Jason Horowitz]

All right. Thanks. I really appreciate it. Michael, thanks again.

[Mike Shields]

And my guest this week, Mattel's Jason Horowitz. And my part is at Elemental tv. If you like this week's episode, please take a moment to rate and leave a review. We've lots more to bring you, so please hit that subscribe button. We'll see you next time for more on what's Next in Media. Thanks for listening.