Hot Wheels, Gucci Edition. Master of the Universe, Shogun Warrior. Barbie “Rosa Parks” Edition，这些是美泰公司（Mattel）最新产品线中的产品，但你没有办法在零售店找到它们。这些产品是这家大型玩具零售商于2020年8月在网上推出的数字藏品平台 Mattel Creations收藏品组合的一部分，旨在丰富客户参与度，加深客户忠诚度，并为公司开辟新的知识产权(IP)和收入来源。
疫情为新的业务努力提供了机会，美泰公司（Mattel）执行副总裁兼首席技术官Sven Gerjets将其描述为由公司技术组织、品牌部门和营销团队组成的内部初创公司。“这始于COVID期间，”Gerjets说。“我们处于一个在家工作的世界，我们希望在这种新的生活世界中为每个人扩展数字产品，我们不知道我们会在这种世界中呆多久。”
他说，从本质上讲，数字藏品平台 Mattel Creations是美泰公司（Mattel）对一个问题的答案，这个问题即使在疫情消退之际，许多公司也在继续思考:你如何在客户所在的地方发展、扩大规模并满足他们?
Gerjets说，“我们知道我们必须创建一个新的数字渠道，吸引我们的收藏家，创造新的产品和更高的体验，”他强调数字藏品平台 Mattel Creations不是他唯一的想法，也不是从母公司独立出来的。
“我们所做的一切都是技术和业务紧密结合的，”这位首席技术官在谈到公司文化时表示。“这就是我们关注转型的方式，无论是改变面向客户的东西，还是改变内部能力。”
一、数字藏品平台 Mattel Creations给美泰公司（Mattel）收藏者提供了新型在线体验服务
像American Girl这样的直接面向消费者的产品线已经成为美泰公司（Mattel）业务的关键支柱，直接服务消费者需要美泰进行大量的技术投资，美泰已经将其业务迁移到谷歌云平台(GCP)和谷歌Analytics已有五年多的时间。
Gerjets表示，为了实现Creations，他和他的IT团队必须“转向”Shopify的在线零售平台(规模仅次于亚马逊)，并从BlueConic实现消费者数据平台(CDP)。这位首席技术官说，这样做使美泰公司（Mattel）处于一个更好的位置，可以专注于特定的消费者群体：美泰公司（Mattel）经典实体产品的收藏者，如风火轮和芭比娃娃，以及许多基于IP的产品。
Gerjets说:“数字藏品平台 Mattel Creations一开始是作为核心平台，提供新的合作类型的体验——这是我们(在疫情前)没有的。”他指出，美泰公司（Mattel）与流行艺术家和设计师进行了广泛的在线合作，他们为美泰的超级品牌产品带来了独特的特色，包括风火轮、Gucci Edition;一辆500美元的蝙蝠车;以及与艺术家Christopher Wright合作制作的“宇宙大师”(Master’s of the Universe Gorka)项链。
在零售商店正努力从疫情关闭中恢复之际，新平台为美泰收藏者提供了独特的在线体验。对美泰来说，更重要的是，数字藏品平台 Mattel Creations的成功将为该玩具公司的大部分在线零售业务重新平台化提供动力。
Gerjets说:“一旦我们为收藏家推出了这个新环境，我们就专注于将我们的收藏家体验整合到一个平台上。”
例如，Creations现在包括美泰(Mattel)的红线俱乐部(Red Line Club)，这是一个专属的风火轮收藏社区，“有数千名会员为体验付费”，他指出，寻找和选择合适的CDP，以新的方式吸引客户，并加强顾客对公司的忠诚度和黏度非常重要。
二、数字藏品平台 Mattel Creations已经成为整个公司直接面向消费者业务的核心枢纽
在幕后，美泰向GCP的数据迁移(从Gerjets大约五年前加入该公司开始)为Creations平台提供了动力。除了云推出外，美泰的IT团队还与Shopify合作开发多租户电子商务引擎，帮助Creations在疫情期间迅速扩大规模。
这位首席技术官表示:“它必须有规模和多租户平台，因为当我们进行这些限量版投放时，数千件(产品)会在几分钟内售罄。”他补充说，Shopify还使美泰能够在其Creations平台中构建内容管理等定制功能。
美泰花了大约18个月的时间才将其顶级产品线转移到Shopify上，此后该网站已扩展到包括每个品牌的论坛。Gerjets和他的团队还与Klaviyo合作，负责销售活动管理，并加强忠诚度驱动的业务线的能力，如“美国女孩”。这位首席技术官表示，美泰还采用了DevOps平台Netlify与业务合作伙伴进行集成。
Gerjets表示，将BlueConic的CDP部署在美泰的GCP环境之上，可以使这家玩具制造商在一个数据中心上聚合营销数据和分析。例如，通过将BlueConic与GCP上的数字体验平台Optimizely结合起来，美泰现在可以实时试验其忠诚俱乐部，从结果中学习，并迅速发展以推动更多业务。
Gerjets说:“数字藏品平台 Mattel Creations恰好是我们能够从头开始，让过去成为过去的地方，但它为我们继续扩大公司规模创造了平台。它确实已经成为整个公司直接面向消费者业务的核心枢纽。”
Gartner分析师Sandeep Unni认为，数字藏品平台 Mattel Creations是零售商为转变商业模式而创造的新价值流的一个例子。
Unni说:“对数字藏品平台 Mattel Creations合作平台的投资使公司能够推出限量版的收藏品，以迎合高价值的收藏家/狂热购物者群体，既迎合当前的忠实用户，也吸引新的购物者。这有可能为公司开辟新的知识产权和收入来源。这也让他们能够通过与新设计师、其他品牌和流行文化影响者合作来迎合最新的文化思潮。”
美泰最近在欧洲推出了直接面向消费者的业务，并将继续在全渠道营销方面进行创新，并计划推出其他产品，如NFT——代表美泰收藏品的数字代币，如风火轮汽车。
但无论创新是什么，美泰的首席技术官都将确保技术部门与公司的品牌和营销团队合作，在整个企业范围内提供统一的体验。Gerjets表示:“技术可能是工具，但我们需要车里的每个人都能创造商业价值，不断发展，推动整个公司向前发展。”
原文：
Hot Wheels, Gucci Edition. Master of the Universe, Shogun Warrior. Barbie “Rosa Parks” Edition.
These are just a handful of unique offerings in Mattel’s latest product line — but you won’t find them in retail stores. They are part of the Creations portfolio of collectibles launched online by the massive toy retailer in August 2020 to enrich customer engagement, deepen customer loyalty, and open up new intellectual property (IP) and revenue sources for the company.
The pandemic provided the spark for the new business endeavor, which Mattel EVP and CTO Sven Gerjets describes as an internal startup-like initiative comprised of the company’s technology organization, brands division, and marketing group.
“It started during COVID,” Gerjets says. “We were in a world of working from home and we wanted to expand out digital offerings with everyone in this kind of new world of living, which we didn’t know how long we were going to be in.”
In essence, he says, Creations was Mattel’s answer to a question companies continue to ponder even as the pandemic wanes: How do you grow, scale, and meet your customers where they are?
“We knew we had to create a new digital channel that engaged our collectors and created new product offerings and elevated experiences,” says Gerjets, who emphasized that Creations, which has earned Mattel a CIO 100 Award for IT innovation and leadership, wasn’t his sole brainchild or an independent spinoff from the parent company.
“Everything we do is tightly coupled between technology and business,” the CTO says of the company culture. “That’s the way we focus on transformation, whether it’s transforming something that is customer-facing or transforming internal capabilities.”
A cloud creation
Direct-to-consumer product lines, like American Girl, have become a key pillar of Mattel’s business. And serving consumers directly requires a significant technology investment by Mattel. Which has been migrating its operations to Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Google Analytics for more than five years.
To pull off Creations, Gerjets and his IT team had to “pivot” to Shopify’s online retail platform, second in size to Amazon. And implement a consumer data platform (CDP) from BlueConic, Gerjets says. Doing so put Mattel in a better position to focus on a specific consumer segment: collectors of Mattel’s classic physical products. Such as Hot Wheels and Barbies, as well as its many IP-based offerings, the CTO says.
“Creations started as the core platform to do new collaborative types of experiences — something we didn’t have [before the pandemic],” Gerjets says, pointing to a wide range of online collaborations with popular artists and designers who put a unique spin on Mattel’s mega-brand products. Including a Hot Wheels, Gucci Edition; a $500 Batmobile. And a Master’s of the Universe Gorka necklace made in concert with artist Christopher Wright.
The new platform provided Mattel collectors with a unique online experience at a time when retail outlets were struggling to recover from pandemic shutdowns. More importantly for Mattel, Creations’ success would provide the impetus for re-platforming much of the toy company’s online retail business.
“Once we launched this new environment for collectors, we focused on consolidating our collector experiences into one platform,” Gerjets says.
For example, Creations now includes Mattel’s Red Line Club. An exclusive Hot Wheels collector community that has “thousands of members paying for the experience.” He says, noting the importance of finding and selecting the right CDP to engage customers in new ways and to strengthen the company’s loyalty clubs.
E-commerce pivot provides sales boost
Behind the scenes, Mattel’s data migration to GCP. Which began when Gerjets first joined the company roughly five years ago, fuels the Creations platform. In addition to its cloud rollout, Mattel’s IT team partnered with Shopify for its multi-tenant e-commerce engine. Which helped Creations scale quickly during the pandemic.
“It had to have scale and a multi-tenant platform because when we would do these limited edition drops. Many thousands [of products] would sell out in minutes,” says the CTO, adding that Shopify also enabled Mattel to build customized capabilities such as content management into its Creations platform.
It took about 18 months to move Mattel’s top product lines to Shopify. Which has since been extended to include forums for each of its brands. Gerjets and his team also tied in Klaviyo for sales campaign management and to bolster capabilities for loyalty-driven business lines such as American Girl. Mattel also adopted DevOps platform Netlify to integrate with its business partners, the CTO says.
Deploying BlueConic’s CDP on top of Mattel’s GCP environment enables the toy maker to aggregate marketing data and analytics on a single data hub, Gerjets says. For instance, by coupling BlueConic with digital experience platform Optimizely on GCP, Mattel can now experiment in real-time with its loyalty clubs, learn from the outcomes, and evolve quickly to drive more business.
“This Mattel Creations store happened to be the place where we were able to start from scratch, and leave the past in the past. But it created the platform for us to continue to scale the company,” Gerjets says. “It really has become that core hub to transform our direct-to-consumer business for the entire company.”
Gartner analyst Sandeep Unni sees Creations as an example of new value streams retailers are making to transform their business models.
“Investing in the Creations collaborative platform has allowed the company to present limited-edition, collectible items catering to the high-value collector/enthusiast shopper base. Both to current loyalists and to attract new shoppers,” Unni says. “This has the potential of opening up new intellectual property and revenue sources for the company. It also allows them to appeal to the latest cultural zeitgeist by collaborating with new designers. As well as other brands and pop culture influencers.”
Mattel recently launched its direct-to-consumer business in Europe and will continue to innovate in omnichannel marketing and with other planned offerings such as NFTs — tokens that represent Mattel collectibles such as Hot Wheels cars digitally.
But whatever the innovation, Mattel’s CTO will ensure the technology organization is engaged with the company’s brands and marketing groups to deliver a unified experience across the enterprise.
“Technology may be the vehicle. But we need everybody in the car to drive business value and evolve and propel the entire company forward,” Gerjets says.
本文由数字化转型网翻译而成，作者Paula Rooney，翻译：数字化转型网郑亚茹，翻译审核：数字化转型网默然。
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