I’m Admitting Failure In The Target Campaign

Posted by Chris on 10/15/24 at 07:05 AM Category: Target, Vintage Collection

https://www.banthaskull.com/images/news/target_fail.jpg

We have a lot of turnover here. That's a good thing. It means we're constantly picking up new members for our little community. That's awesome. But it also means that I can't take for granted that our audience is aware of events in our now sixteen-year history to include even our recent history. So I need to wind back the clock to tell today's story. I hope the members of the community who lived through this won't glaze over during this little retrospective trip.

Toy Fair 2020 was a low point for Vintage Collection 2.0. This event is sadly no longer part of our collecting calendar, but there was a time that it was one of two highlights of the collecting year. We had Toy Fair in February and SDCC in July. Moreover, the Toy Fair often followed a Patriots Super Bowl, which made traveling to New York all the more sweet (they're our rivals!). My how times have changed. Toy Fair is a non-event and now even Browns fans are taking pity on the Patriots, but I digress. Toy Fair 2020 was bleak for TVC fans. We had two reveals of a partial retool and a straight up repack of a partial retool (Power Droid and Jedi Luke respectively). This would be the start of the fellowship. John Miko contacted me, and he was mad as hell. He said we have to do something. We talked about a fan petition, but real life, as it often does, took priority, and we stayed in the ruminating phase. Little did we know, things were going to get worse.

Fast forward to May of 2020. Hasbro announced that they were going to be doing and event called Fan First Friday. Hopes were high. Surely we'd see a TVC Kuiil, Greef Karga, and the Client. The event arrived, and all we got was another repack of another partial retool. It was the Luke Stormtrooper figure. You can see the event coverage HERE. Another sleeping giant in the TVC community was awakened. Tim from Bossk's Bounty reached out to me and said we have to do something. He was mad as hell. With John and Tim serving as sparks of the rebellion, we roped in our generals. General Victoria, from Victoria's Cantina and Admiral Jayson from Yak Face said "together we fight". Many, many other fan outlets joined in, and only a slipping memory keeps me from enumerating them. Together, we collectively launched THE PETITION. I don't mean to be immodest, but that petition absolutely helped turn the fate of the Vintage Collection. If you haven't signed, please do so.

If you look at that petition, you will see that Target is one of the (no pun intended) targets. I truly believed then, and believe now that the deep pockets of brick and mortar play a role in determining TVC's overall budget. Again, I really don't mean to pat ourselves on the back, but I think it worked. Target took on some of the best exclusives for a while. Take a look:

Target has been a massive part of TVC 2.0. Sadly, it's a tragedy for me to say the dream is over. If you get that reference, Gen X rules. If you don't, HERE. I look at the one permanently naked TVC peg at my Target and think the war has been lost. They don't care anymore. I can't help but feel like the fact that Target became the de facto home of the boxed deluxe figures may have played some role. Most of them (all?) ended up clearanced to the point that they are the only TVC product at Ollie's.

I feel like this particular shot has been fired, and it missed. The cannon can't be reloaded. I still contend that Target and Walmart have a big role to play if we hope to get more than a dozen 100% newly tooled figures per year, but simply promising sales of the main line isn't enough. The answer lies elsewhere. There's a reason why Target ignored main line, but happily stocked those unfortunate deluxe sets. There's a reason they stock TBS despite so much of it ending up on clearance (and Ollie's). This discussion will be difficult.