Bobble Heads: Would you market with them?

[deilaitha]

So, the other day, I was lurking at one of my favorite haunts, Barnes and Noble. They have a lot of merchandise in addition to books, and I came across Game of Thrones bobble heads.

Bobble heads.

I realize that these were not G.R.R.M.'s idea. I know it's because the whole thing went viral and companies realized they could make money off of these. Please understand that I am not flaming anybody here--it's good business smarts on the part of the companies.

My first thought was: "I wonder how Martin feels about these?"

Personally, if anyone made bobble heads of my characters, I would be mortified. Even if I got 50% royalties from them. I was personally embarrassed for Martin as I stood there, marveling at these wobbly-headed wonders, probably causing passersby to worry that I was having an absence seizure. Then I saw the Hobbit bobble heads and knew that they would have given Tolkien an aneurism.

However, it did make me wonder about the marketing power of such things. Generally merchandise is aimed toward the fans of something, not prospective readers or viewers. However, seeing a ton of merchandise around something makes the non-fan think: "Wow. This is so popular that there are bobble heads for it? I have seen a lot of t-shirts for it too. And pens. And Monopoly. And...and...and..." and so on.

So, what do you think: would you market with bobble heads? I honestly don't think I could.

Oh, and every time I see bobble heads, I think of Inara from Firefly saying, "And just exactly what was our cut on the wobbly-headed doll caper?" So...I already have the disadvantage of thinking bobble heads are ridiculous.

 

[Devor]

I think you've got to be pretty popular for bobble heads to be worth it. There's no novelty if nobody you show it to knows what they're looking at.

If somebody really wanted to get creative with the merchandise, you should look at 3D printing and think about miniaturizing something in your work for gaming. I think that's going to start happening over the next few years.

 

[GeekDavid]

I can proudly say I very seldom purchase anything connected with a bobblehead. The few instances I can think of would be tickets to baseball games for which bobbleheads had been made of the players.