The Good Luck Troll was originally created in 1959 by Danish fisherman and woodcutter Thomas Dam. At various times since the early 1960s, Trolls have been a top-selling toy, building a seldom-achieved brand equity. Dam Things, which holds all rights to the works of Thomas Dam, is in the process of launching a complete slate of merchandise activities and products for the Good Luck Trolls. Dark Horse Comics has been granted the license for a collectibles program. The line will consist of 15 different trolls, some of which are rare, sold in mystery box assortments.
Dark Horse felt the Good Luck Troll would be a natural fit in the designer vinyl and specialty retail arena, and has created Trolls with unique variations of color and surface treatments. The product development was closely supervised by Dam Things and its brand manager Dannie Festa of Festa Entertainment, including a trip from Denmark to the West Coast prototyping facility to assess and approve the works in progress.
The mystery box, or “blind-box” trading figures, are essentially the same product, varying in decoration and materials and sold at random in sealed packages. Some of the figures are common to every counter display, and some are scarce, and are known as “chase” figures. The ratio of availability is printed on a graphic on each package, so the consumer knows the relative scarcity of the figure purchased. This type of assortment is common in Japan, but a relatively recent phenomenon in the U.S. The Good Luck Trolls “mystery box” is presented in a counter display unit, holding 15 individual blind boxes. Each Troll is packaged in an opaque foil bag inside its box to prevent tampering or viewing prior to purchase.
Dark Horse’s previously produced “mystery box” assortments of Japanese stop-motion animation character Domo have continually sold out at retail. Rather than reprint its Domo figures, the company has simply created new designs, and presented a new series. This will be the approach intended for Good Luck Trolls as well.
Dark Horse will debut an all-new mystery box assortment at Toy Fair.
This post was originally written by Jackie Breyer and published by ToyBook.com. For more news, visit www.toybook.com, follow The Toy Book on Twitter, and like The Toy Book on Facebook. The Toy Book is a bimonthly trade magazine covering the toy industry, published by Adventure Publishing Group.
