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- Nov 11, 2014
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Not sure where this thread belongs since it's about missed opportunities. My own in fact. Posting this to show how I recognized opportunities and failed to follow through to make them winners. Learn from my mistakes.
The first example was back in 2006. Burger King (a U.S. fast food chain) had come up with a new marketing campaign showcasing their 'mascot' as an actor in a costume. This character was really creepy to be honest, but there was an odd appeal to it and the campaign worked to boost BK sales briefly. I went online to see if anyone made replicas of this mask and found nothing available. I decided to try my hand at creating my own and started studying how to make halloween masks. After about a week, I ran to the nearest Special FX store to buy sculpting supplies and mold & mask making materials. After many weeks of work, I had a finished product. Here are pictures of the original commercial costume, my sculpt, and my end product.
I had pondered getting licensing rights from BK but thought that was above my head and they would never work with a solo artist on something like this. I sold about 20 of them on ebay for about $300 each (they cost about $25 to produce each). After about 8 months, I received a cease and desist letter from BK's legal department and closed up shop immediately. Within a few weeks I read how someone else licensed out their mask and were selling them like mad. This was THEIR finished product:
Sooooooo, as you can see my big mistakes were a) not working towards a licensing agreement in the beginning b) blatantly ripping off a copyrighted character. Lesson Learned right? Nope.
About the same time that project came to a screeching halt I began looking for another project to make money on, and it didn't take long to find one. In 1985 there was a movie released called "Major League". I'm not going into the film since the IMDB site has plenty of info on it if you're interested, but there was a prop involved in the movie which was basically a voodoo type doll/statue. Not a big part of the film, but once again had a certain appeal. I soon found out it also had quite a following online with hundreds of people looking for a replica. Once again, none existed and I saw my chance. I had to learn some new skills since this was not a mask, but a solid statue, but with the right tutorials, materials, and patience I was able to produce a decent reproducible replica. Below is a screenshot of the movie prop and my finished product.
Over the last 8 years or so I've produced these in small limited batches and made about 20k or so on them (about $250 profit on each). Just something on the side to make some extra cash on occasion for clothes, toys, xmas, etc. Did I ever pursue licensing in all that time from Paramount pictures, nope. Needless to say that a few months ago someone did exactly that and is now selling them for about $35 each, made in china.
Mind you, mine are of substantially better quality and all hand made, but they are time consuming to make. I recently sold two of them for $200 each, but doubt I'll make any more. These guys have pretty much killed my market. Once again, I could have simply TRIED to get licensing, but laziness and doubt prevailed. Now someone else is making the money on them (albeit I doubt they are making a ton, it's really a small market.)
So, this is just an example of how I found two opportunities and completely dropped the ball on following through.
The first example was back in 2006. Burger King (a U.S. fast food chain) had come up with a new marketing campaign showcasing their 'mascot' as an actor in a costume. This character was really creepy to be honest, but there was an odd appeal to it and the campaign worked to boost BK sales briefly. I went online to see if anyone made replicas of this mask and found nothing available. I decided to try my hand at creating my own and started studying how to make halloween masks. After about a week, I ran to the nearest Special FX store to buy sculpting supplies and mold & mask making materials. After many weeks of work, I had a finished product. Here are pictures of the original commercial costume, my sculpt, and my end product.
I had pondered getting licensing rights from BK but thought that was above my head and they would never work with a solo artist on something like this. I sold about 20 of them on ebay for about $300 each (they cost about $25 to produce each). After about 8 months, I received a cease and desist letter from BK's legal department and closed up shop immediately. Within a few weeks I read how someone else licensed out their mask and were selling them like mad. This was THEIR finished product:
Sooooooo, as you can see my big mistakes were a) not working towards a licensing agreement in the beginning b) blatantly ripping off a copyrighted character. Lesson Learned right? Nope.
About the same time that project came to a screeching halt I began looking for another project to make money on, and it didn't take long to find one. In 1985 there was a movie released called "Major League". I'm not going into the film since the IMDB site has plenty of info on it if you're interested, but there was a prop involved in the movie which was basically a voodoo type doll/statue. Not a big part of the film, but once again had a certain appeal. I soon found out it also had quite a following online with hundreds of people looking for a replica. Once again, none existed and I saw my chance. I had to learn some new skills since this was not a mask, but a solid statue, but with the right tutorials, materials, and patience I was able to produce a decent reproducible replica. Below is a screenshot of the movie prop and my finished product.
Over the last 8 years or so I've produced these in small limited batches and made about 20k or so on them (about $250 profit on each). Just something on the side to make some extra cash on occasion for clothes, toys, xmas, etc. Did I ever pursue licensing in all that time from Paramount pictures, nope. Needless to say that a few months ago someone did exactly that and is now selling them for about $35 each, made in china.
Mind you, mine are of substantially better quality and all hand made, but they are time consuming to make. I recently sold two of them for $200 each, but doubt I'll make any more. These guys have pretty much killed my market. Once again, I could have simply TRIED to get licensing, but laziness and doubt prevailed. Now someone else is making the money on them (albeit I doubt they are making a ton, it's really a small market.)
So, this is just an example of how I found two opportunities and completely dropped the ball on following through.
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