By Peter Thomas

Since 2022, Steve Totzke is President and Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of Mattel. But his connection to the toy brand goes back a much longer time: He has been working for Mattel in senior management positions for nearly 25 years.

Steve Totzke spoke to „Spirit of Play“ at the International Toy Fair 2024. The outlook for Mattel in 2024 is strong, says Mr. Totzke – not only as a company, but also as a brand in itself. That’s a good starting point for celebrating 80 years of Mattel in 2025.

Mr. Totzke, how does it feel to be here again at Spielwarenmesse for you and for Mattel?

Steve Totzke: It feels great, being Mattel's 61st consecutive toy fair. We love being here! Myself I’ve been to the fair at least seven times and I’m always delighted meeting representatives from every region in the world here at the Mattel booth.

In 2023, the “Barbie” movie thrust this iconic Mattel brand into the global pop culture spotlight. It also was immensely economically successful: the highest-grossing film of 2023 made nearly 1.5 billion $ at the box office.Was 2023 a year of decisive development for Barbie?

SteveTotzke: Yes, obviously the movie has brought our brand Barbie to a next level. It was a global cultural phenomenon last year. And it contributed to the fact that Mattel had an incredibly strong year in 2023. So, we're entering this year 2024 with a great deal of momentum. We have big plans for Barbie this year: Barbie will celebrate her 65^th birthday. And we know how to celebrate a birthday at Mattel – I can recall Barbie’s great 50^th and 60^th birthdays, now it is Barbies 65^th. The brand has never been stronger. That is thanks to our fans and a lot of hard work at Mattel: To keep a brand like Barbie this relevant for this long is not easy. There's much innovation that goes into it, as well as research and development.

What role do the other Mattel brands play in 2024?

Steve Totzke: Mattel is famous for Barbie, Hot Wheels and Fisher Price. These are heritage brands. And each is worth over a billion dollars. We have a dozen more brands that are in the hundred-million-dollar range. That’s a great story, we are a successful house of brands. But at the same time, the Mattel brand itself is becoming more prominent. Let me come back to the Barbie movie. You’ve seen that Mattel as a company was a major character in the movie? This is a good reflection of the development of our company: With this in mind, I am looking forward to the next big birthday: Next year, Mattel is celebrating its 80^th anniversary. You can expect that near the end of 2024 we're going to start to roll out the corresponding campaign. And all through next year we'll be celebrating Mattel's 80^th year!

How does this relate to your description of Mattel as an “IP-driven toy company”?

Steve Totzke: I think Mattel is in a unique market position because we do have some of the strongest intellectual properties in children's entertainment space.Again, this is a result of our company culture. It comes from developing our own IP for over 80 years. And this relates not only to our biggest brands like Barbie, Fisher Price, and Hot Wheels. If you think about Matchbox, Masters of the Universe, Monster High, Thomas the Train, Uno – these all are beloved brands. And the list really goes on and on: When people realize that these are all Mattel brands, sometimes they're really surprised.

And IP-driven also means to look beyond your own products and to media licenses?

Steve Totzke: Very much so! With our strong brands we're able to really expand our entertainment offering. That really is what it means to be an IP-driven, high-performing toy company today. We just talked about the Barbie movie. But we have also multiple shows on Netflix. For example, season 2 of Masters of the Universe Revelations just launched as we're in Nuremberg. And it's getting great ratings already and reception.

We all have been talking at the International Toy Fair 2024 about the “kidult” phenomenon ofadult collectors and players as an enormously important factor for the market. What does it mean for Mattel?

Steve Totzke: First of all, I'm thrilled that Nuremberg has shown a spotlight on it here at this Toy Fair, since it is such an important part of the toy industry: This reflects in Mattel’s theme this year: “You're never too old to play”. And I think that's resonating through our entire showroom and the fair. But it not a wholly new phenomenon for us: Mattel has been focusing on adult collectors or kidults since the late 80s. “Barbie Collector” started in the late 80s and was specifically going after the adult collectors of Barbie. And it's not just Barbie: For Hot Wheels we have the “Hot Wheels Red Line Club”, where people pay a subscription fee to get early access to our Hot Wheels collector editions. And the fan base is enormous: We estimate that up to 25 per cent of all Hot Wheels products is bought by adult collectors. So, you see that we have a long heritage of adult collectors.

Do the fans fill this chapter of popular culture with life?

Steve Totzke: Yes, very much so: We have big fan and collector communities, there are conventions. Well, this development is so important for us, that three years ago we started Mattel Creations. When Mattel was founded by Harold Matson, Ruth Handler and Elliot Handler in Los Angeles, California, in January 1945, the early company name was “Mattel Creations”. We adopted the name for a new, individualized e-commerce platform in 2020. It is our curated Direct-to-Customer (DTC) offering that really goes after our fans and caters to the adult collector. And it has really become quite a community and a platform – also for our collaborations with artists, fashion designers, musicians and movie stars. This takes our brand culture one step further.

About the author

Telling stories about technology and people: This has fascinated Peter Thomas, the journalist, author, cultural scientist and lecturer for more than 30 years. Technical toys are always in focus, from construction kits to interactive digital educational toys. After studying and working as a research assistant at university, Peter Thomas writes for daily newspapers, magazines and corporate publications in German and English-speaking countries. In addition to the world of games, his focus is on mobility, security, energy and medical technology.