Mattel opens itself up to product ideas from consumers with My Mattel Ideas

Posted on 23rd June 2017 By Billy Langsworthy

Mattel has launched My Mattel Ideas, a web portal enabling consumers to share ideas for new toys and games with the firm.

Anyone aged over 18 and based in the US can submit concepts to My Mattel Ideas. Products will first be reviewed by only a single person who works for Mattel. If it progresses past that stage, the product may then move onto Mattel’s inventor relations team and brand design team.

Submissions need to include a product name, description and a few sentences on what makes the product different from anything else on the market. The site also requests that the designer provides a video that shows the product in action.

Among many terms outlined in the submissions agreement on the site is that anything submitted is not confidential and is not subject to a confidentiality obligation, with the firm stating ‘no confidential relationship is established by your submission or implied from consideration of the submitted materials, and the materials are not submitted ‘in confidence’.’

The arrival of My Mattel Ideas follows similar online hubs from other toy firms that allow companies to see concepts from anyone, regardless of industry experience, with other platforms including LEGO’s LEGO Ideas, Hasbro’s Spark Hasbro and Jazwares’ JazWings initiative.

The move fits in with Mattel’s recent ‘recommitment to design and design thinking’ as part of a company revamp. The number of inventor submissions the firm has received over the last two years is up 25 per cent, and its Toy Box TV show, which sees designers put their creations to panel of toy-loving kids in a bid to get product to market, has been recommissioned for a second season.

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