a figurine bearing the image of Taylor Swift to relaunch the German brand?

If Lego is piling up successes with its Star Wars and Harry Potter figurines and if Mattel has relaunched its Barbie thanks to the cinema, the German brand Playmobil is experiencing difficulties with its turnover. Finding a place in the licensing market could restart the machine.

Playmobil has fallen behind on the licensing market, to which the German brand was initially resistant. Despite licenses obtained from Disney, or more recently with the French-Korean-Japanese animated series Miraculous, success has not yet been achieved. So today, Playmobil is aiming for the Holy Grail: a playmobil bearing the image of Taylor Swift, the American pop star. “It would be a dream”confided, Thursday March 20, the boss of Playmobil, who assured that contacts had been made and creative work launched.

Playmobil actually needs to dream, because the financial losses are piling up. The company announced at the end of 2023 the layoffs of 20% of its workforce worldwide. In July, general manager Steffan Höpfner resigned after 26 years at the house, wanting to “let go” in the face of the crisis situation. Sales, which suffered from the loss of the Russian market and problems linked to raw materials, have continued to fall since 2021.

Taylor Swift, a phenomenon that goes beyond the world of music

Without a doubt, a Taylor Swift franchise could relaunch Playmobil, when we know the extent of Swiftmania. The famous British daily The Guardian has just announced that it was going to dedicate a weekly Newsletter to it all year long, since “everything goes and everything comes back to Taylor Swift, a total and global social phenomenon of the time”according to the newspaper.

This phenomenon is also a cash factory: the star’s activities, just for the United States, represent sums equivalent to the GDP of 35 countries combined. Even if your ears are impervious to the “pop country” of the woman who considers herself above all a lyricist, it’s difficult to escape the Taylor Swift phenomenon which goes far beyond the world of music.

Moreover, according to a survey carried out for the magazine Newsweek, her influence is such that 18% of American voters in the next presidential election would be more inclined to vote for a candidate supported by the singer. Beyond the figurative language, Taylor Swift literally shakes the planet: researchers from the Seismological Society of America revealed this week that one of her concerts in Seattle last July caused an earthquake of magnitude of 2.3 on the Richter scale!