Subline imprint
A subline imprint is a partial re-branding of a franchise — typically with a secondary title reflecting a theme or gimmick running through the entire franchise.
Examples include "Battle for the Spark" during Beast Machines and AllSpark Power for the 2007 movie. United States airings of the second season of the Beast Machines cartoon were re-titled to feature the subline imprint — though not the Canadian or UK versions, nor any of the DVDs — while the "Allspark Power" toys occupy a loose umbrella story which occurs after the events of the movie.
Subline imprints feature either partial or major changes to the packaging design in order to make the product stand out from the previous "standard" releases. Sometimes, existing product will be re-released in subsequent waves as a running change variant in altered packaging alongside the new product in order to achieve a homogenous packaging style within a case.
In addition, there are occasionally store exclusive "themes" with their own unique branding and packaging design that follow the same basic concept as the aforementioned type of subline imprints, except they don't affect the general retail assortments.
Game Theory
Purchasing agents known as "buyers" make purchasing decisions for hundreds of American retail stores, making their best guess what products will sell and how many while trying to avoid being stuck with the dreaded "old product" (unsold toys) when the toyline ends.
Buyers purchase many toys from early waves reasoning that even if the toyline flops these will sell eventually over the line's (hopeful) year-to-eighteen-month "lifetime." Toys in later waves (eight-ish) represent a higher risk because they have only a six month window to sell, and tend not to be purchased as heavily. As a result, toy companies spend less money developing later waves, often heavily featuring redecos and retools, making them even less attractive to retailers.
For their part, consumers try to avoid purchasing the pegwarmers and shelfwarmers left over as a toyline winds down, but lacking the encyclopedic product knowledge known only to buyers, fans and small children, they learn to suspiciously avoid any packaging they recognize from the last birthday/Christmas/Kwaanza etc. (again making later-wave toys less attractive to retailers.)
A subline imprint refreshes the packaging for consumers (orange may become bright green in the same layout) while assuring the regional buyers that "No, seriously, this is a new toyline, you should purchase it more heavily!" Buyers aren't particularly fooled by this argument, but the re-branding is understood to be a sign that the toy companies have invested in these tail-end waves rather than filled them with junk, making larger retailer purchases a safer investment.
Subline imprints for Transformers series
"Refresh" of ongoing general retail assortments
- Beast Wars: Fuzors, Transmetals, Transmetals 2, Fox Kids Deluxe, Mutants
- Beast Machines: Battle for the Spark
- Armada: The Unicron Battles
- Energon: The Powerlinx Battles
- Cybertron: Primus Unleashed
- Transformers (2007): AllSpark Power, Premium Series
- Revenge of the Fallen: N.E.S.T. Global Alliance
- Transformers (2010): Hunt for the Decepticons, Reveal the Shield
- Dark of the Moon: Movie Trilogy Series (awfully short-lived)
- Prime: First Edition, Robots in Disguise, Beast Hunters
- Generations: Fall of Cybertron, Thrilling 30, Combiner Wars, Titans Return, Power of the Primes
- Robots in Disguise (2015): Mini-Con Weaponizers, Combiner Force
Store exclusive "themes"
- Dark of the Moon: Mission Earth (Toys"R"Us), The Scan Series (Toys"R"Us; a further subline imprint within "Mission Earth")
- Prime: Dark Energon (BigBadToyStore in the United States), Beast Hunters: Predacons Rising (Target in the United States; another subline imprint within a subline imprint)
- Robots in Disguise (2015): Clash of the Transformers (Toys"R"Us; initially as a separate subline imprint, later continued under Mini-Con Weaponizers as another subline imprint within a subline imprint)
- The Last Knight: Autobots Unite (Walmart in the United States), Mission to Cybertron (Toys"R"Us), Reveal the Shield (Target in the United States)
Notes
- Though not only predating the modern concept of a "subline imprint" by a decade, but also predating the concept of individual franchises within the Transformers brand itself by a few years, the final two years of the original toy line's US run had the entire lineup cleanly divided into two sublines per year, each with its own title built around a common gimmick: Pretenders and Micromasters for 1989, and Micromasters and Action Masters for 1990. Early Micromaster Patrols even sported their own unique logo (with the older name "Micro Transformers") on their packaging, as did the Action Masters. This thematic streamlining of the brand was also reflected in the official catalogs included with the toys, which up to that point had always featured an "Autobot" and a "Decepticon" side, but for those two years used those sublines as the major division line between the two catalog sides instead. The mostly European-only continuation of the line added "Classics" for 1990 and maintained the streamlined nature of the line with Action Masters and "Classics" in 1991, though the latter had no actual official name unlike the aforementioned three (but still featured a common packaging design that visually distinguished them from the concurrently available Action Masters packaging).
- The Age of Exctinction line also had a theme of redecoed "Silver Knight" Optimus Prime figures that were all exclusive to Target stores in the United States, but since they don't have their own logo and/or unique packaging design, they don't constitute a proper subline imprint.
