Haim Saban is a Billionaire and it all started with a trip to Japan and only one thing on TV. Way to Go Go Power Rangers.

Dave Young:

Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I’m Stephen’s sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today’s episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it’s us, but we’re highlighting ads we’ve written and produced for our clients. So here’s one of those.

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Dave Young:

Welcome back to The Empire Builders Podcast, and we’re talking empires today. Stephen Semple’s there. I’m here. I’m Dave. Gosh, if anybody that ever thought I was reading the intros like that, it’s not okay.

Stephen Semple:

Mystery solved.

Dave Young:

Mystery solved. Never the same twice. So Stephen, you told me that we’re going to talk about Power Rangers today, and I think of that like an entertainment franchise sort of thing, but also what also toys.

Stephen Semple:

They are also toys, yes.

Dave Young:

Was it one of those things where it’s like, oh, we’re going to invent this toy and then we’re going to have an entertainment program to go along with it? Because these things seem to go hand in hand these days.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah, and they very much was hand in hand. The two came about very much together. And it’s got an interesting history to it because it was launched in 1993 and it was created by Haim Saban, who is now a billionaire. He’s gone on to do a bunch of things.

Not just making a ton of money from this, but if you look him up on Wikipedia, it’s estimated he’s worth a couple of billion dollars. So he’s done well in the entertainment industry. And Hasbro acquired the company back in 2019 for $522 million. So it certainly has contributed to his wealth. And he was a cartoon theme songwriter is where he got his start.

Dave Young:

Really? Okay.

Stephen Semple:

He worked on things like Professor Gadget and Masters of the Universe. Those were the things that he was writing theme songs for.

Dave Young:

Oh, cool.

Stephen Semple:

But he wanted to create his own property. He always wanted to have his own thing. And at the time, he’s on a business trip in Japan, and the only thing you can get on the TV is this Japanese animated series called Choudenshi Bioman, which is part of what they call a Super Sentai series. And Saban was fascinated by this concept of five masked people in spandex fighting monsters. So it’s in 1985, and he produces a pilot of Bioman.

And the idea of adapting Japanese productions to the US market started basically in 1970 with Marvel. Marvel did a deal with Toei Company to exchange ideas, and Toei created a Japanese version of Spider-Man that did actually really well. And what Marvel tried to bring to the US, not so much. So it sort of worked. Initially, America to Japan was working, but Japan back to America was not working as well.

But that didn’t stop Saban. So what he decided to do was create a show where they could keep the original action scenes, because the action scenes are complex and hard to film, and then just replace the other scenes with good-looking American actors. So basically when there was the action scenes, it was actually the original Japanese content. And then they would put in…

Dave Young:

Oh, wow.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah, he just basically said, okay, here’s this Japanese thing. I’ll keep the original story. I’ll keep the Japanese content. And then where any of the acting is, I’ll put in good-looking American actors. Basically that footage is already shot and the toys already existed. So it was also economical to import it to the United States.

This was his idea. So he gets a meeting with Toei and Bandai, and they agree. What the heck? Sure. Take our content. Take it to the United States. So he gets agreement from them. They already got the toys. They already got the expensive action scenes. All they got to do is splice in the other stuff.

Dave Young:

So on the Power Rangers, I mean, I had little kids at that time. Anytime they’re in their helmets and they’re fighting and it’s the bam, bam, bam stuff, that’s all from original Japanese shows.

Stephen Semple:

Original Japanese content. At least that’s how it started. I don’t know as it progressed whether they changed that, but initially, yes, that’s what it was.

Dave Young:

And so then when they take their helmets off and they’re just sitting around the Power Ranger den or whatever it is.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah.

Dave Young:

Yeah, okay. Wow, what a cool idea. I mean, an interesting way to mash up content.

Stephen Semple:

And so they’ve got nothing to lose on it. They agree to license the US rights of all of this to Saban. So it’s in 1987 and Saban’s ready to pitch it to US networks. It has this kind of campy feeling, right? They say, “Yeah, no, we’ll pass.” He talks to everyone and no one wants it. And the problem is for him to keep the licensing alive, he’s continuing to pay the license. There’s a minimum licensing fee. It’s draining him. He’s continuing to pay this licensing fee to keep this alive.

Now, it’s 1990 and people are now looking… Remember, 1990, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles happens. So now there’s a little bit of an appetite for these things, and there’s a new president at Fox Kids, Margaret Loesch. Now, here’s the interesting thing. Margaret Loesch knew the series because she had been at Marvel and had done these ideas with Stan Lee in the 1970s. So Marvel was doing these cross-pitchings, she was part of all of that. She was actually running that.

And so she loves the idea. She was immediately on board, and she takes it to her bosses. But the upper management hate it. Live action targeting at kids. It’s too new. Not going to happen. And she puts her job on the line. She says, “I’m going to do this.” So it’s 1992, she puts her job on the line. Saban gets a green light, but he needs a new name. They want a little bit more than Power Rangers. So it becomes the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Dave Young:

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Yup.

Stephen Semple:

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Now, Bandai is small in the US at this time, like $4 million in sales. Hasbro’s doing like $2 billion, but they’re going to save all this money because the toys already exist. And not only that, all the characters are from the same mold. They just do a different color.

Now, the size is a little bit off standard because the Japanese market’s a little different standard size than the US, and they want to do something to really make it stand out. So here’s the interesting packaging thing that they do with the toy. Toys at the time were like there was the toy would sit in the middle and you’d see it, right?

Dave Young:

Yeah, the action hero in the… Not the shrink grip, but the…

Stephen Semple:

So the window would be in the middle of the packaging cardboard…

Dave Young:

Plastic formed thing. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. Well, what they decided to do is put the character in the corner of the packaging. So now the window wrapped around the character. So you could see the front of the character and the side of the character, and it would also make it unique. Stand out on the shelves. They created this corner packaging. So now the show comes out and it’s a hit.

Dave Young:

Stay tuned. We’re going to wrap up this story and tell you how to apply this lesson to your business right after this.

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Dave Young:

Let’s pick up our story where we left off. And trust me, you haven’t missed a thing.

Stephen Semple:

So now the show comes out and it’s a hit. It’s such a hit that when the Nielsen ratings come out, people don’t believe the numbers.

Dave Young:

Really?

Stephen Semple:

There’s no way it was this popular. It was so popular that they moved it from the mornings to the afternoon and put it up against Oprah.

Dave Young:

Wow! Okay.

Stephen Semple:

And by October, Power Rangers are surpassing Oprah.

Dave Young:

That’s crazy.

Stephen Semple:

Isn’t that crazy? And the toy explodes. You can’t get your hands on it. In 1993, the demand is so high, it’s now becoming the story that’s out there. Bandai makes 4 million of these toys. It’s not enough. They’ve got 11 factories. It’s not enough. Christmas 1994, they can’t keep up. Literally in Christmas in 1994, Power Rangers represents 40% of all action figure sales.

Dave Young:

That’s amazing. That’s amazing.

Stephen Semple:

In the first three years, they do a billion dollars in sales.

Dave Young:

Outstanding.

Stephen Semple:

Is that crazy?

Dave Young:

I had a niece that was really into the Power Rangers. My kids really weren’t, but yeah, what a cool thing. That’s a lot of plastic.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. What I really liked was Saban, he saw this idea in Japan. And again, it wasn’t all that new thing of trying to bring something from Japan, but what I really loved was the way he looked at it was it became almost a slam dunk for people to license it to him. Because it’s like, we’re going to reuse your toys, even though the US market’s a different standard size.

We’re going to reuse your content, all the expensive stuff. We’re just going to reuse it. And here’s how we’re going to make it an American feeling is we’re just going to splice this stuff in. When I heard that, I was like, wow, that is brilliant. What a brilliant way of reusing content.

Dave Young:

Well, on a microscale, it’s what’s happening all over TikTok and Instagram, everything.

Stephen Semple:

Today?

Dave Young:

Yeah, you mash it up. You take somebody else’s something and do something else with it.

Stephen Semple:

Yeah. I thought this was really clever. And then fortunately, the change that happened over at Fox Kids is what gave him the roll forward. And again, it’s that usual protest of, well, no one’s done this. This is too new. And yet, how many times is that too new thing always the thing that explodes? It drives me crazy. We’ve got to stop using the excuse of, well, no one’s done this before, so I’m not going to do it. Get some guts. Be innovative. Don’t fear it.

Dave Young:

Well, it’s a recurring theme in creativity that the corporate gate holders are the ones that keep movies from being greenlit and shows like this from being made. We watched The Story of Late Night TV. I don’t remember if that’s the name of the show, but it had six or eight episodes. And the amount of decision making by corporate executives running entertainment companies is astounding, how poor decision makers.

The thing is, when you’re working with talented people that are committed that aren’t going to say no for any reason, you’re going to be successful despite these corporate naysayers. And then they take the credit for being brilliant. I don’t think they’re playing four dimensional chess where they’re just like, okay, I’m going to say no. And only the ones that are the most committed are the ones that are going to buck the system, and they’re just going to go on and make me a lot of money. I don’t think they’re doing that.

Stephen Semple:

No.

Dave Young:

I think they’re trying to analyze and think that they know exactly what the market wants.

Stephen Semple:

Absolutely. And it’s interesting, go back to HBO, right? And The Empire Builders Podcast. What made HBO so successful? They basically said, if we hire the best screenwriters and the best producers, just let them do it. They gave them complete free rein. And look at how many amazing, unbelievable, incredible shows come out of HBO, and they do not have the biggest budgets.

Dave Young:

Yeah. There’s a documentary on Paul Reubens that I watched yesterday as well. He was Pee-wee Herman. And it was one of those HBO things. Once they saw his show that he did, they gave him free rein to create Pee-wee’s Playhouse. And they didn’t mess with him.

Stephen Semple:

They didn’t mess with him.

Dave Young:

Now, it was a complicated story. It’s really cool. It was actually a pretty cool documentary, and it was him setting the record straight before he died in 2023.

Stephen Semple:

Well, and I suggest on this whole idea of creativity, I’m going to suggest people go back and listen to HBO. Do you want to know what? I just looked it up. Do you want to know why I couldn’t remember what episode number it was? Guess what number it was? Two. Yes, episode number two. Like, holy crap, it was a long time ago. But here’s the other interesting thing. We see this in advertising all the time. There’s certain sectors where I’ve been out speaking to people and they’ll say, “Well, hey, have you done much work in that space?” And it’s like, no.

Dave Young:

Pray that I haven’t.

Stephen Semple:

Right. And then all of a sudden we’ll do a couple and get some real traction on. Then all of a sudden, everybody wants to hire us. And here’s the trick, those later people are paying way more to hire us. It’s like I work with a private jet company and they asked me, they said, “Have you ever done anything with aviation?” No. “Have you ever done anything in transportation?” No. And they said, “Why do you think you can be successful with us?” I said, “I know how to get people to buy a Rolex watch.”

Dave Young:

Yeah. What difference is that?

Stephen Semple:

A Rolex watch is a necessary luxury and I know how to get people to buy a Rolex watch, so I know how to get people to buy your planes. Anyway, it’s just interesting.

Dave Young:

It’s funny, here’s a blanket suggestion to anybody that’s in an industry, dental client years ago that didn’t go anywhere because, oh gee, Dave, you’ve never done websites and marketing for dental companies before. It’s like, well, why do you think your website looks like all the other dentist websites? Because that’s your criteria.

Stephen Semple:

The criteria is… Right. What you should be doing… Look, this is the theme of this podcast. Look elsewhere. Look elsewhere and find things. Be inspired by other industries and other cities and other places. Starbucks was inspired by Italy. Saban was inspired by Japan. Or solve a problem. Empires come from either inspiration from somewhere else or a problem that the person is suffering with himself like Dyson. I couldn’t get the vacuum cleaner to freaking work, so I’m going to make a better vacuum cleaner. That’s it. Don’t look inside your industry because then you’re just a follower.

Dave Young:

Here’s a simple piece of advice. If you’re in a big city, pay attention to what conventions are coming to town. And if it’s a convention that’s in just a totally different industry than yours, buy a ticket.

Stephen Semple:

Go to it.

Dave Young:

Buy a ticket. Go sit in on some sessions, walk around the exhibit hall and meet some people. And you’re going to come away from that thinking differently about your own business.

Stephen Semple:

Absolutely are.

Dave Young:

And once you figure that out, then travel to Las Vegas. Go to a big convention that’s not in your wheelhouse.

Stephen Semple:

Absolutely. And I’ll give one other Vegas tip. If you’re wanting to figure out how to display things, freaking go to Vegas. The stores in Vegas got that completely figured out how to display things. But this is cool. Wow, we went down interesting paths.

Dave Young:

What was the topic?

Stephen Semple:

Power Rangers. Well, we morphed.

Dave Young:

Yeah, we did. We mightily morphed into a different kind of conversation. But it’s exactly what they did, right?

Stephen Semple:

It’s exactly what they did.

Dave Young:

Cross-pollinate your ideas and steal like an artist.

Stephen Semple:

There you are. All right. Awesome.

Dave Young:

Thanks, Stephen.

Stephen Semple:

Thanks, David.

Dave Young: Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please share us, subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a big fat juicy five-star rating and review at Apple Podcasts. And if you’d like to schedule your own 90-minute Empire Building session, you can do it at empirebuildingprogram.com.