Global Toy News

TAGIE Winner Greyson MacLean on Conan and More

One of the TAGIE Awards is for young inventors with products that have made it to retail shelves and this year we had some very accomplished young inventor nominees. Kylie Copenhagen invented Zobmondo's Ladybug game when she was in first grade and it has been top selling pre-school game at Target for years. Jake, Erin and Lachlan Johnson, the inventors of FlipOutz, a hot new product sold by Wild Creations, were featured on Shark Tank and Daymond John invested in them. Last, but not least, Greyson MacLean, inventor of BrickStix, a removable label for bricks like Legos, that is being picked up by stores everywhere. 

Our PR firm, Media Maison, worked to get these nominees and other TAGIE nominees and their products national exposure.  Conan O’Brien invited Greyson as a guest on his November 12^th show. You may have seen the clip as it circulated around the industry. Greyson was amazing. He not only held his own, stealing the show from LL Cool J, but bested Conan a few times. Definitely worth the watch.  http://teamcoco.com/video/greyson-maclean-drops-truth. 

I asked Greyson if he would share with us what it was like being on Conan, winning the TAGIE Young Inventor Award and working his BrickStix booth at ChiTAG. I am publishing his response unedited and in its entirety. Thank you to his mom, Amy, for the pictures. 

Mrs. Couzin, 

Here are the few paragraphs you asked me to do. Sorry it has taken so long. I have had a lot of homework this week. 

The Great Big Toys R Us Book; a gender critique

This is the 5^th, and last, in a series of gender critiques of mass market retailer toy catalogs.  Today I am taking a look at “The Great Big Toys R Us Book.”  Previously, I have reviewed the Wal-Mart,  Target, Kmart and Sears catalogs. 

I have to say that it was with some personal interest that I began my review of the Toys R Us catalog.  Last year I had noted that the Toys R Us catalog contained pictures of 4 ride-on cars in which a boy was driving and a girl was the passenger.  None of the pictures showed a girl in the driver’s seat.

That posting led to a conversation with Toys R Us and eventually an opportunity for me to speak to their buying staff about gender and toys.  Based upon Toys R Us’s interest in the subject, I was wondering what this year’s toy book would look like Vis –a- Vis gender.

Well, Toys R Us did not disappoint.  For starters, “The Big Toys R Us Book” had more gender equity than any of the others I reviewed.  It contains 93 pictures of boys and 83 of girls; 47% of the images were female.  That number is close to parity and looks pretty good compared to the ratios in the other catalogs that ran from 17% for Sears, 34% for Kmart, 36% for Wal-Mart and 37% for Target. 

Why the Toy Industry Needs the €uro

In a global toy economy, problems for the Euro could be a problem for all of us.  To find out more about the problem and how it might effect the toy industry we turned to Steve Reece.  Steve is a leading Brand Management Consultant for the Toy Industry in the UK, working across Europe and beyond. Steve has an Honours Degree in European Politics, and holds the Market Research Society certificate with Distinction. After a period working in retail, Steve joined Hasbro’s Market research department, before moving on to Brand Management for some of Hasbro’s top Brands, and setting up Toy distribution companies. Steve’s favourite toy as a Kid was his Soccer collectable cards, his favourite Board Game was and is Risk. www.ViciEntertainment.com

We are truly living in crazy times. Aside from the ongoing fallout of the global financial crisis and the accompanying downturn, Europe has it’s own drama within a drama threatening to make things even worse for the Eurozone and beyond.

So why not just can the Euro? Well frankly, I don’t really understand the economics and politics of it very well…however, I do know what it was like to work in the Toy industry before we had the Euro – a total nightmare! If setting Product (wholesale) pricing seems complicated to you today with $ / £ / € pricing needed to hit most major markets, looking back it was an exceedingly complicated process.

Back when the Euro came in, we went from having to decide (wholesale) prices for 6+ major currencies to having just £pounds and €Euros. I cannot emphasis  strongly enough how much easier that made life. Prior to the change, we had to start with one currency, set a commercially viable (wholesale) price then hope the price would translate well to a workable pricepoint in the other major currencies.  The issue was, often they wouldn’t fit together, so we’d have the perfect numbers for one or 2 markets, but be out in the others, and god help us if we got the pricing wrong for any market…the angry phone calls from colleagues not in the top couple of markets are strong in my memory even today!

Sell Sell Sell! Why You Shouldn't Overlook the Little Guy

Sell, sell sell! Nothing happens until someone sells something (an IBM mantra). Inventing, creating, tooling, producing, shipping - no matter how clever the product, none of it matters unless someone sells it.    

I am sometimes remiss in my sales efforts, ignoring perhaps smaller and potentially important toy manufacturers in favor of the fewer and larger companies. The smaller companies often do the best job selling a product when they throw their heart and soul behind it. Examples of this are everywhere - Marchon with Key Cars, Schaper with Stompers, and on, and on, and on.        

We spoke with one of the second-tier toy buyer teams in Dallas last week. They purchase toys for almost 70 large stores and they were very busy with 32 meetings in one day between the two of them. In total they may saw the product offerings of 50 or more companies at the Dallas Market Center. Impressive, indeed. But what of all the other toy companies in attendance offering their wares? The others have no chance of their toys being offered in these 70 or so stores, as they were not even seen.    

The Wal-Mart toy catalog; a gender critique

The gender critiques I have been doing on mass market retail chain toy catalogs (click here to read the critiques on Target, Kmart and Sears) are beginning to reveal a pattern.   As a result, I have decided to do critiques of the Wal-Mart and Toys R Us catalogs as well.  Once I am complete, I will be doing an article that analyzes the results and what they may or may not tell us about the toy industry and  gender. 

In these critiques, I have  been looking to see whether the toy industry, by its marketing, is sending subliminal messages to children that may actually be bad for business.  As importantly, are we as an industry in sync with how today’s children see the world?  In other words, is the toy industry looking at 21^st century kids through 20^th century glasses? 

So how did Wal-Mart do?  It appears that the Wal-Mart toy catalog, like those of Kmart and Sears, is far more oriented towards boys than girls. 

By my count, the catalog contained 30 depictions of boys compared to 17 of girls.  In fact, once you leave the doll section, there are only 5 depictions of girls in the rest of the catalog as compared to 30 depictions of boys.   Not surprisingly, the doll section contains no pictures of boys.

Not only is the ratio of boys to girls heavilly skewed but the depiction of girls is sterotypical.  Take ride-on cars as an example.  There are 7 pictures of ride-on cars in the catalog and all but one is driven by a boy.  (The one with the girl is in the girl’s section while the boys are all on one page). 

The 2011 TAGIE Award Winners

The annual TAGIE awards have turned into not just an important night for recognizing those who invent toys and games but a very popular one.  That was evidenced by what looked to be the almost 500 people crowded into the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry to honor the industry's toy and game inventors.

I had a number of people new to the event tell me that it felt like they were attending the Academy Awards.  And I think that for those in attendance and those who won it was.  These awards mean a great deal and that was brought home to me when Marty Abrams made his acceptance speech for winning, along with Joel Rosenzweig, the award for Excellence in Toy Design for their Fyr Flyz.

Toy Week in Chicago

The important series of toy industry events that took place in Chicago last week had no overarching name, so at least for this posting; let’s call them "Toy Week in Chicago."  The week, put on by Mary Couzin and her hard working volunteers consisted of:  The T&G Inventor Con, the TAGIE Awards, the Social Media & Play Conference and the Chicago Toy & Game Fair.  Any one of these events would be notable on its own but put together over the span of four days; they made for a rare toy industry experience.

This is the only event in the world, to my knowledge, in which those starting out have the opportunity to meet and socialize with those who are experts in their field.  The ambient feeling that pervaded all events can best be summed up in an email I received from someone who came a very (and I mean very) long way to attend: 

Re-Imagining Retail - Where Games Can Take Us

Rob Bartel is a veteran designer and producer of video games with Electronic Arts’ BioWare studio. He joins us as a board game correspondent, however, having recently expanded into board game design with Two by Two, 2012 runner up for Best Family Game in Games Magazine's annual "Games 100" Awards. A passionate advocate for the board game industry, Rob helped found two national initiatives - the Game Artisans of Canada and the Canadian Heritage Collection. His newest endeavor is the Famous Games Company, an innovative provider of promotional card games for the sports marketing industry.

Over the past five years, bookstore chains like Chapters here in Canada or Barnes & Noble in the United States have faced growing competition from online retailers such as Amazon.com. When Borders filed for bankruptcy this past February, many assumed the brick-and-mortar bookstore might be following in the same footsteps as movie rentals (i.e. Blockbuster's fall to Netflix) and music CDs (i.e. HMV in the wake of iTunes). But Chapters and Barnes & Noble have both fought back. On the one hand, both have successfully embraced technology and the eBook movement with their Nook and Kobo eReaders. Less discussed, however, is their decision to carry an ever-broader range of carefully curated tangible products that invite shoppers to pick them up, touch and feel them in a way that's impossible online.

For book stores, toys and games have proven to be a big part of that second strategy. In an economic environment that finds Toys R Us delaying its IPO, debates over whether or not Walmart is slashing its toy department, and Hasbro's games category in a downward spiral of double-digit losses, Barnes & Noble recently declared its toys and games category to be up 53% year-over-year (on top of last year's 48% increase). In fact, they're rolling out thousand-square-foot Toys & Games sections in over 500 of its stores for the holiday season, paralleling a strategy Chapters started pursuing here in Canada earlier this spring.

So how are bookstores achieving such a remarkable success in the board game market? What implications does it have for the board game tipping point? What does the future of retail look like and what roles can board games play? Read on to find out...

Bryan Stockton New Mattel CEO

I have just learned that Bryan Stockton will be taking over as Mattel's new CEO next month.  I have found Bryan to be a highly approachable executive with a keen sense of the toy business and a great managerial style.  As importantly, Bryan is always a student.  When I see him, I can always count on him to be asking for other people's perspectives.   In short, I believe that this is not only good for Mattel but it is good for the entire toy industry. 

Here is why: 

Bryan is an internationalist.  For this industry to continue to grow it must do so abroad.  As a Los Angeles Times article,"Mattel CEO Robert Eckert to be replaced by COO Brian Stockton," puts it:  "He's been a key architect behind Mattel's rapid international growth and has also helped shape many of the company's recent growth initiatives."  The toy industry has a mission to increase international sales and Bryan has helped to set the mark for the rest of the industry.

The Sears Wishbook; a gender critique

In my last blog I critiqued the Kmart toy catalog based upon its depiction of gender toy preferences.  I looked at the number of actual girls and boys depicted and with which toys.

In this posting, I look at the toy section in the Sears Wish Book.  Kmart is Sears’s sister company and I found their catalog to be overwhelmingly male.  What about the Wishbook; well it was even more male oriented than the Kmart book.  There were 15 boys and 3 girls depicted.  That 5 to 1 ration beats Kmart’s 2 to 1 ratio by a mile.

There were depictions children associated with 9 vehicles on which you ride.  All those children depicted were boys.  In fact, of the 3 girls depicted, 1 was with a kitchen set, 1 was in a play house and 1 was on a slide. 

The Kmart Toy Catalog; a gender critique

I recently wrote a gender critique of the Target toy catalog.  I looked at how girls and boys were presented Vis a Vis the various types of toys presented. My purpose in these critiques is to see if the toy industry stereotypes children by gender;  and if so to what degree and with what consequences. 

There is any number of reasons to inquire about this from both societal and business points of view.  Where these two converge, at least for me, is whether the industry has, at least in part, created age compression by marketing to girls in a manner that is more in touch with 20^th century attitudes than those of the 21^st century in which these girls actually live. In other words, does the industry inadvertently work against its own interests?

My review of the Kmart catalog revealed an overwhelming orientation towards boys.  Of the 67 photographs of children in the book, 44 were of boys and 23 were of girls.  What was odd was that in flipping through the same catalog prior to my count, I had an even greater sense of a boy orientation; but why?  One reason may be that when girls are depicted they are either clustered on a page or are depicted with boys.  So, I counted up the number of pages only depicting boys and the number of pages only depicting girls.  22 pages only showed boys and 7 only showed girls.  In fact, you don’t see a girl until page 10.  Oddly, the doll section, which runs for 9 pages, only contained 2 pictures of girls. 

Prediction Results - Games in the Harris 2011 Purchase Intent Poll

Rob Bartel is a veteran designer and producer of video games with Electronic Arts’ BioWare studio. He joins us as a board game correspondent, however, having recently expanded into board game design with Two by Two, 2012 runner up for Best Family Game in Games Magazine's annual "Games 100" Awards. A passionate advocate for the board game industry, Rob helped found two national initiatives - the Game Artisans of Canada and the Canadian Heritage Collection. His newest endeavor is the Famous Games Company, an innovative provider of promotional card games for the sports marketing industry.

As part of my When Games Explode series back in September, I made a series of predictions about the current explosion of growth and innovation we're currently seeing in the board game industry and what to expect in coming years. The first prediction I made was that the 2011 Harris Purchase Intent Poll, which tracks the intent to purchase toys as gifts, "will confirm that tangible games have overtaken video games for the average adult North American consumer." The latest poll, which includes the results from 2,463 adults surveyed online between October 10 and 17, 2011, was released this past week. Let's see how my prediction fared...

Wal-Mart, Black Friday, Thanksgiving, and the retail worker

Thanksgiving for my family, as I am sure for many of yours, is a very special holiday.  It’s a sleepy day in which everyone eats too much turkey (thank you Tryptophan) and too many carbohydrates.  The day before Thanksgiving is historically the biggest travel day of the year demonstrating that extended families will go to extreme measures to see each other.

I can distinctly remember one Thanksgiving when my father was asked to work on Thanksgiving Day.  He felt pretty bad about it as did we all.  It put a pall over the holiday as the cares of the rest of the year shouldered their way through the front door and into our holiday.  

It was for that reason that I became concerned after reading that Wal-Mart was planning to open 10:00 PM Thanksgiving night. Toys R Us has subsequently announced a 9:00 PM opening.   

Minimum Wage in Dongguan

China Guangdong Dongguan Government is in final discussion to approve the minimum wage increase by 17.9% in Dongguan effective on Jan 1, 2012 (from RMB1100/month to RMB1290/month).

via www.globaltoynews.com

Direct Response Television – Why Toy Retailers Love DRTV

Direct Response Television is one of those phenomenons that are an unavoidable part of modern life for anyone who watches television.  Yet, few of us know much about the nuts and bolts of actually preparing and running one not to mention whether it is something that makes sense for our products.  That is why I asked Robert Yusim, the leading expert on direct response in the toy category, to write a blog about it.

Rob began his career working directly with Raymond Kives one of the founders of K-Tel and Quality Dino Entertainment. In 2006 Rob crossed over into the toy category and started Spin Direct, Spin Master Ltd's DRTV division, with the launches of Rocket Fishing Rod, Moon Sand, Storm Launcher and Reflex Heli. Over the past 5 years Rob has launched or licensed over 100 toy product campaigns in the US, Canada and UK. In 2010 Rob launched Product Counsel to provide complete turnkey DRTV services to clients in the toy industry.  

Often when I meet with a toy company for the first time, the one question that comes up most often is, “How do retailers react to DRTV on products that will eventually be sold at retail?”. Many toy companies have an impression that if product is being sold directly to consumers, that retailers will not approve. On the surface, that would be a reasonable assumption because it would appear that DRTV sales would take revenue away from the retailers. BUT toy retailers love DRTV…Let me explain why.

The Chinese Superman

If you want to get a feel for the coming power of the Chinese and Asian consumer, you have to take note of two new ventures by western companies into the Chinese movie business.  Back in July, it was announced that Stan Lee, the creator or co-creator of titles like Captain America, Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Hulk, the X-Men and more was creating a Chinese super hero.  The new character will be designed for Asian audiences.   

Why go to The Hong Kong Toys and Games Fair? We ask the Hong Kong Trade Development Council

Every year in early January, North American toy industry professionals flock to Kowloon to meet with other North American toy industry professionals.  While there, the Hong Kong Toys and Games Fair is taking place across the small harbor on Hong Kong Island.  Though most stay one to three weeks, very few North Americans make the twenty minute trip across the harbor to attend the fair.

I always make it a point to attend so am always puzzled by why so few other do.  So, in order to find out what North Americans are missing and to find out how to attend, I contacted the HKTDC (Hong Kong Trade Development Council).  They kindly agreed to this interview.

Global Toy News

The Hong Kong Toys & Games Fair is considered one of three major toy shows; the others being Nuremberg and New York.  What will visitors see and experience in Hong Kong that they won't at the other shows?

HKTDC

The Hong Kong Toys & Games Fair is held concurrently the HKTDC Hong Kong Baby Products Fair (9-12 Jan 2012), the Hong Kong International Stationery Fair (9-12 Jan 2012) and the HKTDC Hong Kong International Licensing Fair (9-11 Jan 2012). With all four fairs scheduled for the beginning of 2012, they are expected to draw the attention of buyers from every corner of the globe and enable fruitful trading and valuable intelligence exchanges between exhibitors and buyers.

Global Toy News

What do you think Americans are missing by not attending?

HKTDC

Americans may get some new ideas from their Asian counterparts.  In addition, the Chinese mainland registered the highest attendance (excluding Hong Kong visitors) in 2011. Because of this the fair provided access to the Chinese mainland market, which is a high potential emerging market showing continued growth in toys sales in the past few years.

The fair also takes the advantage of Hong Kong being located at the center of Asia, attracting buyers from all around the world, particularly from Asia, to exchange market intelligence during the fair period.

Technology, Toys and Gender

I recently critiqued the Target 2011 Toy Catalog (see "The 2011 Target Toy Catalog; a gender critique") from a gender perspective.  In doing so, it was noteworthy that the section containing technology toys was by far the most gender neutral. 

It is interesting to ponder why this is.  In order to find out, I reviewed a survey on how children play conducted by the AIJU The Toy Research Institute.  The survey looked at children’s play patterns, not from the traditional gender perspective, but from the perspective of what toys the children actually chose to play with. 

By doing so, they were able to drop the traditional binary boy / girl choice and divide children into seven social profiles:  Princesses, Feminines, Sporties, Naturals, TV Adventurers, Tots and Technologicals.  If you would like further information on these groups click here.

Hark Now, Is that a Toy I Hear?

When I was three, my parents brought me to EPCOT Center, the home of SMRT-1, a purple and chrome robot surrounded by telephones. SMRT-1 challenged guests on the other end of the phone to trivia and guessing games. When I picked up the phone, SMRT-1 asked me for my name. I responded and in turn, he said, “Hi Michelle.” I frantically waved back at him. I know, with today’s technologies (Hi Siri) it seems ridiculous to get excited over this, but it was the 1980s. And as an only child with more than a figment of an imagination, I believed my toys possessed the same senses and range of emotions as humans. I’m not alone. Toy manufacturers continue to personify inanimate objects, and I think it’s because these traits pull at our heartstrings.

In the late 1800s, Thomas Edison fitted a bisque head on a metal torso and placed inside a teeny Edison phonograph with a cylinder and a recording of nursery rhymes. The Edison Toy Phonograph Manufacturing Company employed 500 people to work on the doll and it took half of them to make each doll. Patrick Feastor, historian of the early phonograph, noted that “this was the first case of a professional recording for an audience.” Imagine the excitement of the little kids whose parents spent 10 dollars to purchase one of these dolls! Sadly, the novelty wore off quickly. The record featured the sweet voices of little girl factory workers, but the actual pops and hisses of the early phonograph caused disturbing interruptions. In addition, the steel stylus tore up the wax cylinders and the mechanism proved too difficult for a child to manage. Edison himself said, “the voices of the little monsters were exceedingly unpleasant to hear.” Weighing in at 4 lbs, the doll was indeed a monster. 

Cyber Monday and the continuing assault on bricks and mortar retailing

As the tech savvy Millennial Generation comes into its own as shoppers and the rest of us become more comfortable with on line shopping we are continuing to see a growth in cyber sales.  That’s why this year’s projected increase for Cyber Monday sales (+12.4% forecast by IBISWORLD) against a projected flat Black Friday for bricks and mortar should be of concern to any bricks and mortar retailer.

As big a problem as it is for small retailers, it is an even bigger one for mass merchansiders.  Target, Wal-Mart and the rest have to do enough business to support massive distribution centers and 200,000 square foot stores.  Yet it  is increasingly harder for the mass merchandisers to secure increases as they experience this steady drip of consumers from the bricks and mortar to the virtual economy.  Perhaps that explains Wal-Mart’s desperate decision to move their store openings back from midnight to 10:00 PM Thanksgiving day.    

This Times it's Toys; My Top 10 List of stories and movies that feature toys

Last week I published My Top 10 List of Books, Poems and Film that Feature Games.  In other words, books that used a game play or game play as an essential element in moving the plot forward.

In this posting, I want to focus on toys.  As with games, I found that there are a number of books that use toys as an essential plot element.  Here they are listed them in alphabetical order:

A Christmas Story - Jean Shepard

This wonderful movie, based upon the short stories of Jean Shepard, tells the story of Ralphie Parker and his hot pursuit of a Red Ryder Bee Bee gun.  All of us can identify with Ralphie’s lust for the forbidden and the comedy that ensues in the movie is both hilarious and warm. 

Citizen Kane - Orson Welles

Considered by most critics and fans to be the greatest movie ever made, the story uses a sled named Rosebud as the core of a mystery that reveals only at movie’s end. 

Pinocchio - Carlo Collodio

Thanks to the Walt Disney Company, we are all very aware of the puppet that is turned into a boy.  The book, written in the 1880’s is, however, a much darker tale.  Yes, there is a cricket with a conscience but Pinocchio kills him pretty early in the story. 

The Great Santini - Pat Conroy

The Great Santini uses a basketball game between an overbearing father and his coming of age son to tell the story of life in a Marine family which the father runs like a military unit. 

The last Mimzy - Lewis Padgett

You may have seen the movie but better to read this very clever and a little unnerving science fiction story.  The books tell the story of two young children who happen upon a box of toys from the future.  They turn out to be educational toys and the results that follow are fascinating.

The Nightingale - Hans Christian Andersen

Written by the famed Danish story teller, the Nightingale tells the story of a Chinese Emperor who prefers the music of a bejeweled mechanical bird to a real one.  Eventually the mechanical bird breaks and it is only the music of a real Nightingale that brings him back to life.

Game Board Tattoos; "Hungry Hungry Hippo" On Your Bicep?

The Toy & Game Inventor Conference is next week in Chicago so I thought it only appropriate to end the week by celebrating those who really love, and I mean really love, board games.  Those are the people who choose to to anoint their bodies with tattoos featuring characters and elements from their favorite board games.  It is, to say the least, of note that there are people in this world who want to permanently tattoo that little Monopoly guy on their biceps. 

I don't know how he came upon them but a guy named Ian Fortey came up with 25 in a piece appropriatley called "25 Board Game Tattoos."  Most are either wierd or poorly done but a few were kind of nice.  Here are two:

Hungry Hungry Hippos:

Monopoly guy:



Part 5: Ick Baby! Ick Baby!

I always like to ask audiences the question:  "If you merchandised action figures and fashion dolls in the same department and ran fashion dolls from right to left and action figure left to right, what would go in the middle?  Now I know---Ick Baby with Turbo Barf.

If you want to see parts 1-4 click here:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

 

 

The 2011 Target Toy Catalog; a gender critique

As those who read me know, I have been researching the relationship between gender and toys.  Particularly, I am interested in how the toy industry markets to children and whether that marketing actually has an impact on how children see themselves, their abilities and their opportunities.

Some charge that the toy industry, by positioning girls as nurturers (think dolls and toy dust pans) and boys as aggressors and builders (think weapons and construction), sends a strong message to them as to their roles in life. 

In addition, by marketing based upon gender, it is possible that we cause age compression.  Forcing children into stereotypical roles in a world that is rapidly evolving (cooking shows now feature testosterone fueled chefs and women run companies) may cause them to see toys as fantasy play and therefor stuff for small children.

However you feel about the subject, I find it interesting to regularly take the industry’s temperature.  Last year I reviewed the Toys R Us catalog and noted that all 4 depictions of boys and girls in ride on vehicles showed the boys driving.  A further check of the internet was unable to find any pictures from any company of girls driving boys.

So, this year I thought it might be interesting to take a walk through the new Target catalog and see how girls and boys are presented Vis a Vis the toys depicted.  So, here we go:

That’s certainly a girl on the cover and she is doing the nurturing thing, welcoming us with a wonderful wreath.  On the back cover we see a girl holding a stuffed dog (nurturing) and one boy with a dinosaur and the other with a gun (perhaps to shoot us in honor of the season). 

I did my due diligence and was unable to find any depictions girls and boys together in ride on vehicles.  I did, however, count all the forms of vehicles depicted (a total of 15) and found that 12 were ridden by boys and 3 by girls.  Apparently, boys do most of the riding in this country.

The catalog depicted 8 toys that I would characterize as aggressive (a Thor Hammer, a rifle, etc.) and all depicted boys playing with them.  This was not surprising.  What was surprising, however, was that of the 3 musical items depicted, all were played by boys.  Aren’t girls rock stars too?

Part 4: Ick Baby! Ick Baby!

Click here for:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

China’s Middle Class; 250 million strong

Upon my return from my recent trip to Shanghai, I wrote an article entitled:  "Entering the Chinese Toy Market."  It was about opportunities for western companies bold enough to enter the Chinese consumer market now rather than later.   

I have continued to research the domestic Chinese market since my return and was therefor struck by an article I found in the Washington Times entitled “China Explores New Paths to Prosperity.”  It is about the Chinese government's moves to encourage consumer spending.  The article makes the point that China’s export industry has been feeling the impact of the lingering global economic malaise.  This has meant idling factories and a general slowdown in economic growth.   Hence, the need to grow its own consumer market.

How big is that market?  According to the Washington Times, the Chinese middle class is estimated at 250 million people.  Of course, we have to ask the question, what constitutes a middle class in China?  Does it have the same spending power as, say, the American middle class?  Well, no it doesn’t.  As the article puts it  “Some studies indicate that China’s middle and upper classes only have about 6 percent of American purchasing power."

Part 3: Ick Baby! Ick Baby!

Ick Baby! has to be the greatest girl's toy ever.  Click to see Part 1 and Part 2. 

My Top 10 List of Books, Poems and Films that Feature Games

Games and toys frequently show up in novels, poems and films.  In some cases they are essential to the plot structure.  Today I want to focus on games.  It seems particularly timely as we are seeing a growing presence for games in book stores.  Even though much of this is driven out of the need for additional revenue to make up for the business lost to eBooks, it seems to me that books and games go hand in hand.  They both, when well designed, fully engage the mind.  As to the heart; I guess that depends upon who is sitting on the other side of the game board. 

In that spirit, I decided to create a list of notable novels, poems and films that feature games as essential to the plot.  Here they are in alphabetical order.

Alice in Wonderland; Lewis Carroll

One of this book’s most notable scenes is the manic croquet game that features living playing cards.  The Queen of Hearts with her shouted “Off with her head!” is one of literature’s more remarkable characters.

Chessmen of Mars; Edgar Rice Burroughs

Set on Mars or Barsoom as Burroughs calls it, the creatures of that planet play their own version of Chess called Jetan.  The Jetan board has 100 squares and 20 pieces.  The squares and the pieces come in black and orange.  Burroughs actually detailed how the various pieces moved so it is actually possible to play a game.

Enders Game; Orson Scott Card

A brilliant young man thinks he has been asked to play a video game but in actuality he is fighting a race of interstellar creatures that look like insects. 

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone; JK Rowling

Harry Potter and his friends become players on a giant chess board…and they win.

Jumanji; Chris Van Allsburg

A very unsettling picture book, which was turned into a movie, tells the story of children trapped into playing what they think is a board game but one that engages real life, danger and even death.

Part 2: Ick Baby! Ick Baby!

Here is Part 2 of the Ick Baby! series from Baby Blues.  For Part 1 click here.

Ick-Baby! Ick-Baby! I Love You

Satire is a wonderful and powerful thing.  Having a good sense of humor is equally important so all of us in the toy industry should be able to laugh at a very clever comic strip series by Jerry Scott and Rick Kirkman.  Their cartoon, “Baby Blues,” is a regular in many newspapers.  It is frequently funny and always very clever. Thank you to my friends Peter and Addie Laudin of The Pattycake Doll Co. for bringing this to my attention

In the spirit of the comic strip vernacular, I will bring it to you one at a time.  There are five in all.  Here is number one.  Have fun.

The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company

I assume that you, much like me, frequently ponder where to buy your superhero supplies.  After all, most superheroes (Batman accepted) don’t have the time much less the money to keep replacing torn capes, disguises and weapons.  Hence, we have to buy them somewhere.

That somewhere is the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company where you can find pretty much anything you need to fight crime.  According to a New York Times article, “Where Superheroes Can Get Capes or Anti-Matter,” the store is actually a not for profit arm of 826NYC, a free tutoring center for aspiring writers age 6 to 18.

The items they sell are made by volunteers and consist of products like:

The Washington DC Fly In; actually a little scary

Each year, the Toy Industry Association asks the industry to come together in Washington, learn about what the government has planned for us and lobby Congress for relief from whatever that is.  This week a small number of industry leaders answered that call.  I made the trip as did Cardinal, Funrise, Sportcraft, Thinkfun, Patch, Itoys, Wild Planet, Creativity for Kids, American Plastic Toys, Tomy, Big Time Toys Mattel, Leapfrog, Hasbro and Lego.

I strongly suggest that the next time there is a Fly In that you make the trip as well.  There is just too much at stake not to attend.  For one thing, it was really a little scary. 

Nancy Nord, Commissioner for the Consumer Products Safety Commission, gave us a stern warning that 2012 is going to be the year in which the CPSC will begin enforcing new CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act) regulations.  They will go into effect on January 1, 2012 as Federal Law.  The CPSC will be checking toys at the ports of entry.  Failure to comply with third party testing regulations; leaving off traffic information and other discrepancies can lead to holding of the shipment and fines of $100,000 per violation.  This is serious stuff.

Integrating CSR into the licensing effort

On the face of it, the attendee list alone at the Consumer Products sector meeting I attended prior to the massive BSR Conference this week in San Francisco speaks to the growing importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) among companies that deal in the consumer products marketplace. More than 20 brand owners and retailers were represented – some by multiple people -- ranging from brand owners such as Hasbro, Disney, Burberry and Ralph Lauren and merchants including Wal-Mart, Office Depot, H&M, Gap and Nordstrom, among others, in a workshop format.
At this point, virtually all – if not all -- major consumer goods companies have well documented policies concerning the working conditions under which their goods can be made in their own and their suppliers’ factories, and most have stated policies about the environmental impact of the manufacturing process. In the face of rising consumer consciousness about how their toys, clothing and other goods are manufactured, it’s an important aspect of any supplier relationship.

Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon; why doesn’t Wal-Mart have a bigger price advantage?

Retailing Today has an excellent article on the pricing battle between Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon.  The article, entitled “Price leadership not so steady” states that the pricing gap between Wal-Mart and the retailers it worries about most, Target and Amazon, is shrinking.

The study cited is by Citigroup and here is how the Retailing Today article describes the results:

According to Ciitgroup, retail prices of a basket of “hot” toys for holiday 2011 are now 30 bps cheaper at Walmart than at Target, compared with 50 bps cheaper at Walmart in its previous survey… While Target may be the competitor Walmart pays most attention to, Amazon continues to pose a threat, with its toy prices falling 6% during the same two-week period since Citigroup’s previous survey. Amazon’s basket of toys is now 650 bps pricier than Walmart, compared with 920 bps pricier for the prior survey.

Wal-Mart has historically differentiated itself from its competition by being the uncontested low price leader.  That as opposed to Target which provides higher quality goods or Amazon which