Star Trek Could Learn Lessons From John Deere

[Dayton3]

John Deere is arguably the number one agricultural tractor builder in the entire United States.

How they got that way is obvious. They sell lots of tractors.

But how do they market themselves?

John Deere also markets a massive toy line of John Deere tractors and accessories. A number of people who will never own a tractor or live on a farm go into John Deere dealerships just to look at the toys.

John Deere also liscenses a number of both childrens and adult level books about the company and their products. Effectively keeping their name out there for all ages.

I see that and it seems to me that the Star Trek franchise could learn alot about marketing from John Deere.

To me, it seems that Paramount tended to look at merchandising and Trek related products as a drag on the televised product rather than a complement to it.

 

[RapidNadion]

Well, there's a good point in what you're saying. But at the same time, there is such a thing as over-saturation of the market, and for a while there during Star Trek's rebirth in the 90's, we had everything from "Photon Candies" to action figures to toys to uniforms to novels, tech manuals, and board games.

If that's not breaking into as many markets as possible, I don't know what is. And that stuff all sold pretty well until the product behind it -- the show -- started losing viewers as it (arguably) lost quality. I'm not sure, but I don't think people were banging down the doors to buy ST merchandise at Toys'R'Us when Insurrection was busy tanking in theaters.

So, yes -- a good accessory market is important, but only when you're going to make money on it. CBS/Paramount isn't doing to spend millions on a bunch of toys and books based on a franchise with a tenth of the popularity it had fifteen years ago. That's spending money to lose money.

Now, if the new movie does well, we may yet see a resurgence of the consumer goods ... something I'm quite looking forward to. Along with hearing people talk about "Star Trek" in public again. It's been too long.

 

[Dayton3]

I think Paramounts problem with Star Trek wasn't "overmerchandising".

It was "mismerchandising".

They refused for example to allow any liscensing of products that they thought would contradict the aired Treks.

They liscensed too much of the stuff for the adult and collector markets. Inevitably resulting in lots of overpriced crap hitting the market.

They didn't target much to the lower priced kids markets.

And speaking from experience, promotion of liscense Trek products was a joke. The idea from Paramount seemed to be "its Trek, it will sell itself".

 

[RapidNadion]

They didn't target much to the lower priced kids markets.

... you mean, besides the $7.99 action figures, $19.99 lights & sounds props, and $39.99 ships and playsets that made up the Playmates line?

I mean, I'll agree (and my parents certainly did) that the ships and playsets were a bit overpriced, but the rest of it was downright reasonable. What about the fifty-cents-a-pack trading cards, though (Hallmark)? Or the $14.95 communicator pins (StarLand)? Or the $30.00 uniform jumpsuits (Intergalactic Trading Co.)? I just don't agree that Trek merchandise was overpriced for its day.