The power of play still matters: Mattel and CPGvision’s partnership in trade promotion management

Toy industry business challenges

After the demise of Toys-R-Us in 2018, toy companies lost an important conduit to customers. In addition, American toy makers are facing higher material costs due to the soaring price of oil. E-commerce has significantly disrupted the traditional toy promotional model focused on children triggering impulse purchases in-store. As online purchases of toys have skyrocketed, retailers are struggling to justify shelf space to a stagnate brick-and-mortar category. The threat of impending tariffs on toy imports from China is forcing manufacturers to think about price increases and how those will affect an industry that is not experiencing strong organic growth.

The power of play still matters

Mattel, Inc., a toy manufacturing company with headquarters in California, has nurtured the power of play since 1945. Its brand portfolio includes household names such as Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, Little People, and Power Wheels. Following a comprehensive bottom-up review, the company is facing the challenges of the toy industry by taking steps to preserve creative capabilities, realign resources toward high-performing toys, improve online sales and develop better toy franchises for the future. Mattel has also forged a strategic partnership with CPGvision to elevate trade promotion management efforts with retailers.

Why CPGvision?

Five key differentiators fueled Mattel’s decision to implement CPGvision’s cloud-based solution:

Salesforce Platform

Built on Salesforce’s secure, cloud computing infrastructure and architecture, CPGvision enables Mattel to leverage the Salesforce ecosystem and its continuous technology innovations, such as Lightning, Einstein and Heroku.

Contract Planner + Trade Planner Functionality

With CPGvision, Mattel can easily manage trade promotions, multi-year contracts for rebates and gain visibility into marketing dollars spent with distributors - all in one system and in real-time.

Experience level

In addition to CPGvision’s 150 years of combined real-world experience spanning both TPM and CPG subject matters, Mattel can tap into CPGvision’s strategic partner PolSource. The CPG-focused specialists at PolSource include 200+ Salesforce worldwide experts who have deployed solutions alongside Salesforce for over 10 years.

Speed to market

Due to its proven methodology, track record, and implementation expertise, Mattel will be up and running on the CPGvision platform in 18 weeks or less. This level of speed is unprecedented considering the number of accounts, products, and historical data Mattel has in play.

UI & UX

CPGvision’s clean, modern interface and simplified user experience exceeded Mattel’s requirements for an easy-to-use platform that can elevate data visualization and incite long-term use.