When it comes to toy cars (a rather strange subject to talk about I know) it is likely that you know two brand names – Hot Wheels and Matchbox. In most department stores, these two brands are often on the complete opposite end of the isle from one another, have the same price, and Hot Wheels has more options. The interesting part about that – the same company, Mattel Inc, owns both brands. Yet one particular brand gets all the attention online.
What it comes down to is that clearly Mattel has a clear idea of what brand they want represented online. If we look at the budget and exposure that is given to both brands, Hot Wheels beat out Matchbox in every category, including:
• Organic Rank/Keywords
• Related Organic Keywords
• PPC Budgets
• Social marketing
In this article, you can see that Mattel's chief executive, Bryan Stockton, includes Tyco R/Co, Matchbox, and Hotwheels in their 'wheels segment' even though there is no active PPC ad budget or online marketing strategy for Matchbox.
The question then becomes, why is all of the focus on Hot Wheels instead of Matchbox? Both are in the same price range, and while Hot Wheels has the larger selection, that is not to say that Matchbox is not represented on the shelves. When it comes to online marketing, clearly the interests of Hot Wheels are far greater than Matchbox. Could this be a case of Mattel wanting to phase out a brand, or are they trying something else?