Author Description

“The Legendary Ads”: Discover (or rediscover!) the fabulous advertising and promotional campaigns for Star Wars toys in France from a new MARKETING perspective. The late 1970s saw the real advent of the licensed toy, with the industry’s gradual movement from an era of tradition to one of globalization. Toys had now become cultural, collective objects, and therefore subject to fads and trends; hence the importance of marketing and communication. Meccano's teams demonstrated their marketing savoir-faire and inventiveness by focusing on the promotions themselves, using innovative strategies and tactics – “the medium became the message.” Most of these fascinating advertisements, catalogs, internal and commercial artifacts are presented in their original format and actual size. They offer an instructive overview of toy marketing in the Original Trilogy period and how it evolved in France, and provide unparalleled insight into globalization as it developed through the 1980s to become the foundation of the marketing practices we see today. 233 color pages.