The best analogy for the MINI’s are they are the California Adventures Theme Park and the 1:55 series is Disneyland.

No matter what, it just cannot hope to compare.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong with California Adventures, it’s just not Disneyland.

Or if your brother is Michael Jordan … good luck escaping that shadow 🙂 …

So, really – no matter what you think of the Mini’s, they cannot really hope to ever compete against the big brother and it’s always an unfair comparison.

Then add in the fact that the 1:55 is one of the most successful diecast line EVER and I’ll bet the CARS 1:55 series diecasts made more money last year than Hot Wheels did in its third year of existence.

So how do you hope to compare pop culture wise & financial wise against the 1:55 juggernaut?

And bottom line, the Mattel 1:55 series CARS are pretty now the greatest diecast line design-wise and quality-wise …

So, yea, competing against a new icon, the most successful diecast line in years and the best looking diecast line ever – yea, good luck with that …

So, that’s BEFORE you ever look at the first MINI … that’s the mountain it had to scale perception-wise … BEFORE you even begin anything else …

Of course, when you have a successful line such as the 1:55 series CARS, you want to create a second branch (aka: grabbing more shelf space & pegs) so as with several other lines (not just Mattel’s), you go small and more stylized … (Lego’s, Galactic Heroes, etc …)

And while other secondary lines might only have to compete against a few factors with the mainline such as a successful iconic line (like Starwars), no one really considers Starwars mainline the best sculpt-wise or quality wise action figure line.

However, that was the burden and price that the MINI’s had to compete against: iconic license, huge success, design, and quality of the 1:55 line … and if that’s not enough there were/and are three additional hurdles:

1) the sheer number of the mainline still being released (aka: what consumers have already budgeted for CARS 1:55).

2) They were not diecast and they cost about 75% as much of the 1:55 CARS.

3) CARS collectors want CARS to be canon – not to say that people won’t buy canon but it’s another hurdle to overcome …

4) People already have “these CARS” in a sense with the mainline … again, it’s not that people are 100% dead set against buying them ‘again.’ You have to give them a reason to – either through design or through DIFFERENT un-released in the mainline …

Taken separately, not necessarily a huge deal but add them all up?

In addition to the usual hurdles, basically, the MINI’s had about 8 hurdles to overcome just to get to the starting line …

When you have THAT much to overcome BEFORE the first release – it’s like you have to build a ladder without any tools to climb out of the hole even BEFORE you begin to climb the mountain, right?

So, it’s imperative that you execute the launch of the secondary line near-perfect but to be brutally honest, it was poorly launched.

Here’s what was not done correctly.

The releases of the first MINI’s were for the most part visually unexciting. Keep in mind, it’s not that they were poorly designed or produced – but remember all the strikes against this line – that consumers owned most of the characters already, these were not canon to the film, they were not metal, and they cost slightly less than an individual mainline but since you could buy 2 at a time, it was really about 100% more costly than a mainline CAR (at that time). So, when you are faced in a tough marketplace, as a “seller,” – it’s up to you have to come out blazing with product that dazzles and gave consumers NO excuses NOT to buy … DARE them NOT to buy by coming out with something they find it hard to say no to …

But sorry, Green colored Doc & Sheriff is not exactly coming out of the gates in a blaze of glory …

It’s nice but in this situation, nice is simply not good enough.

Cute, yes and eventually to be released, sure … but out the gate? Not so great.

If there were only a couple of these in the first cases, that wouldn’t be a major problem as people would have to hunt hard to complete or start a collection but when the first three cases essentially all contain the SAME 2-packs, just in varying amounts … AND they were the ONLY cases that retailers ordered plenty of … so while the McQueen’s and Mater ones were picked off, there were simply TOO many of these – nice but not brilliant ones. The end result of having some 2-packs packed 6 to the first 3-cases and with some retailers ordering 3 cases each of the first few meant that were 18-20 of some 2-packs on the pegs … doubly un-enticing since you don’t really feel in much of a hurry to buy when there are 20 on the shelf …

Imagine if this had been one of the first releases?

So, by launching this branch of CARS with less visually interesting characters and then over-packing the first 3 CASES with the same 2-packs, this line was in a big hole from the get-go that they FINALLY starting to dig themselves out of …

See yesterday’s post for the latest releases – we’ve come a long way since the days of repainting Doc …

In fact, maybe to re-launch the MINI’s, a nice attention-grabber would be a MINI Speedway of the South set 🙂

Chick’s a little mad Green Chick has not been released yet …

Chick probably doesn’t mind cheating a little though.

Hey, a ‘pass’ is a pass …

Coming next …

A lot more MINI Piston Cup Racers 2-packs (Woohoo!) and MINI Haulers (Woohoo!) are coming … so you might need to clear a tad more room on the shelf …

Plus the rest …

Mini Case Assortment is pretty hard to come by so it’s hard to say what the case pack will be until it arrives … but they seem to be listed in order of release here in theory, since each new case contains 2-4 new release packs, you can sort of group-guess what the next 5-6 MINI cases might contain.

And don’t forget, the Mini-6 packs …

… there are three more 6-packs listed we haven’t seen yet …

Piston Cup
Dinoco
Highway 66

Which could-should contain some of the MINI singles listed above.

Of course, there’s also a mysterious playmat only available at Disneyland-DW …