Not sure what to think after reading the Chris and Scott posts about the Mattel presentations. The search seemed pretty open to various forms of outdoor kids products. But, from what I understand, Mattel was really underwhelmed. Was it the lack of product ideas related to Nerf-like soft compounds? Surely, Mattel has been aproached with thousands of product ideas over the years. Being an Industrial Designer, I know Mattel is holy grail for creative talent. And they get whatever talent they need in-house. So, why then, did they need to go outside of their own resources to try and get new creative ideas? I wonder if they thought of EN as a place to get actual scientific innovations rather than product concepts?

My opinion, is that they should have narrowed their product needs from the get-go so they would have seen only the things they knew they’d be interested in. When a project brief is too open ended it’s really hard to hit the sweet spot. I think this is a classic example of non committment by the brand owner. I’ve been through it a bunch of times with new clients. This way, they can test out a firm (EN), to see what sort of skill sets are available. Quality assessment. Then, if/when it doesn’t meet their expectations, they can walk away because the one thing they were really interested in (soft compound products), they didn’t get. It’s also probably a way to keep things ambiguous and not tip off competitors of their interest in various markets.

At least this is my view on the deal…