Global Toy News

The Showroom Showdown - Real and Virtual Retail Spaces

Change is afoot, as always, of course. I am fascinated by the changes taking place at retail - the interface between customer and the store, between the online and real world, ‘brick and mortar’ retail spaces. Best Buy and others are being forced to evolve, and quickly, primarily by the growth of Amazon.com and the enabling of in-store price checking. Best Buy often acts as a mere showroom for electronics via smart-phones.

As one of the urban Amish, being a member of the older generation that doesn’t crave an iPhone, iPad, or iWhatever, I don't use my old-fashioned Blackberry to ‘showroom’ when shopping. It is unlikely that I will anytime this decade, late adopter that I am.

Instead, I watch it all from afar, bemused and also fascinated to see retailing in the throes of great change, and curious to see where it will all lead, and whom will benefit.

Change Is Constant - Adapt to Survive

Change can be gradual and easy to adapt to, or sudden and catastrophic. When electronic games first entered the marketplace in the late 70’s a partner at Marvin Glass proclaimed board games dead, so severely were their sales impacted by games such as Simon, Merlin, and a host of similar follow-on products. 

When Cabbage Patch Kids became a runaway hit, the large feature-doll business collapsed and took years to come back, never returning to the glory days the category enjoyed beforehand. If you were a big doll company at the time, you were greatly affected. 

On the Great Man, Himself - The One, The Only, Marvin Glass

I just finished reading an article about him. Having worked in his studio after his death in the mid 70’s, and never having had the opportunity to meet him, I am always fascinated to learn more about this toy industry genius/legend who ‘invented’ the business of toy invention and licensing.

He wasn’t just the original, the biggest, the best of the toy inventors. He didn’t just make and lose fortunes more than once, and he wasn’t just a legendary paranoid crazy-man. In the article he comes across as one of the modern toy industry’s early intellectuals, with some profound insights into what toys really are.

"You're Kidding, Right?" - or - How I Learned to Be Fearless

"You’re kidding, right?"

Well, actually I wasn’t kidding, Steve.

It was in a long ago presentation in some hotel room near O'Hare Airport, to Steve D., a toy scouting executive of a major East Coast toy company.

Now, no doubt you have played with or seen someone else hold a large sheet of plastic or cardboard and shake it to make a sound somewhat like thunder. Different materials and sizes make different thunder-like sounds. Cool sounds. "That could be a toy," I reasoned.

Failures of a Young Toy Inventor - or - How I Learned to Be Fearless

It’s all fun and games until someone gets sprayed.

Like having a pet skunk, kinda. Well, actually, not so much. Anyway, as I was saying, I vividly recall as a young designer at the legendary Marvin Glass and Associates I had created a top with a magic marker doo-hickey as the ‘point’ of the top. As the top spun it created spiralling patterns on paper. Quite cool. That would have been back around 1980, long before Doodle Tops were even a twinkle in some marketer's eye.

Celebrating the Town Fool - TAGIE Awards 2012 Keynote Speech

I was fortunate to be invited to give the keynote speech at this year's Toy and Game Inventor Awards, which took place last Friday night at the Field Museum in Chicago. It was a magical evening, thanks to the tireless efforts of Mary Couzin and her team. The following is a transcript of my speech, for those who may not have been there. Enjoy. 

photo courtesy of The Game Aisle

"Friends, esteemed colleagues, arch rivals, competitors, respected associates, toy people.

I welcome you to this, the opening of the tenth annual Chicago Toy and Game Fair and the fifth anual TAGIE Awards. Thank you to Mary and her dedicated army of toy supporters, for reminding me how proud I am to be numbered amongst your ranks. The creative depth and impact of our industry on the world knows no limits.

Does that sound a bit sensational?

Future Toy Designers of America

I recently had the privilege of speaking to the Junior and Senior classes of FIT's toy design program at the invitation of the lovely and charming Ms. Judy Ellis. It is always a pleasure to talk about toys and what we do as inventors, and these students were a very engaged group with lots of good questions.

I try to impart several messages on such occasions.

One, don't let your belief that something can't be done keep you from attempting to do it if it is indeed a worthy goal worth reaching. We have been amazed on more than one occasion when we have managed to do something we thought was impossible at the outset. 

Erector Set Helps Win the Nobel Prize

Sir Harry Kroto attested that playing with the nuts,bolts, and perforated metal strips of the Meccano (also know as Erector in US and invented originally by Frank Hornby, a Liverpool shipping clerk) construction toy helped him to win the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He went on to say, “Meccano teaches engineering and architectural skills in a way that Lego doesn’t. If we had more Meccano we would have trains that worked. There would be more engineers with better basic understanding.”

Louis Marx - The King of Toys

In case you didn’t know:

Paraphrased from Vol. 1, No. 1 of the Marx Toy Collector Newsletter, circa 1981

Louis Marx, the one and only KING OF TOYS, started out in about 1921 with his brother Dave, buying up dies for making lithographed metal toys, from his former boss, F. Strauss.

The brother started out making the iconic rope climbing Monkey and an African American version of same, about 8000 pcs/day. While these had already been on the market since before the turn of the century, Marx brightened the colors, made other sizes, and marketed them under the name ‘Zippo’, selling them in the 1925 Sears catalog for 19 cents a piece. In 1929 they went up to 21 cents - probably due to rising labor costs in China.

Retail Conundrum - Looking Up?

Technology in our day-to-day lives is used to entertain, free up our time, improve productivity, and otherwise assist us. But technology, more than serving us, is changing us.

I read recently that some retailers are not stocking product above eye level, because consumers no longer look up, so used as we are now to looking down at the handheld devices in our hands. Really? We are no longer looking up? What is the implication of that?

Don't Be Afraid . . .

I recently took my son to a client meeting in New York City. The toy company rep we met with relayed to me and my son the story of how he got into the toy business.

When Mr. X (names have been changed to protect the innocent!) was fresh out of high school, he was hired by one of the large, now defunct, well-known giftware companies. On his second day there the owner left for an extended period of time, most likely for the Orient. The second-in-command called the team together and explained that of the one hundred projects currently in progress, the most they could get finished by the time the owner returned was thirty. Mr. X, not knowing better, spoke up from the back of the room, "Let's do all of them."

Business is War - the Davids and Goliaths of the Toy Industry

Life and business is full of surprises - that's part of what makes it so interesting. I recently heard from an industry veteran - now the captain of a small toy company - that contrary to what one might expect, a smaller toy company can get better pricing out of a factory than one of the majors.

This may not always be the case, perhaps, but it certainly does happen. Despite the fact that a big company will often do ten times the volume of a smaller one, the large company will still pay more for its goods because it is known to have deep pockets and can afford to pay more. Hmm.

Holographic ID Tags - Peace Worth Buying?

I recently met up with a vendor who supplies holographic ID tags to many industries, but only one toy company. Made in the USA and not counterfeitable, these tags identify authentic goods, from those that might be sold as, and be indistinguishable from, counterfeits. Counterfeits are often made in the same factories as the real things, by the same people, out the back door after hours and are are therefore identical to the original product. Of course, others are just cheap imitations of the real thing.

Did you know that if a product recall is triggered you are responsible for your authentic goods as well as any and all counterfeits? They have YOUR name on them, despite their factory of origin. A holographic ID tag could determine which, if any, product units a toy company would actually be responsible for in the event of a recall.

How to Make Toys & Toy Inventors

I never miss an opportunity to speak when invited. I think it important to share with others what we do as toy inventors and what we learn in the process of creation. It's also important to let kids know about toy design as a possible career choice.

After all, it wasn’t until I was flat broke and desperate for a job 30+ years ago that I even heard of toy design. Before that I had never given a thought to where toys came from. It turns out that toy invention was the perfect career choice as the need for innovative and fresh ideas in the toy industry is never ending.

Childhood Obesity - Blame the Toys or the Schools?

In the strident discourse of modern society it is tempting to believe, and perhaps too often true, that the louder and more persistent the voice, the more likely it is to carry the day, rallying others to a cause by virtue of negativity, repetition, or pure volume.
 
But that is not always the case, thankfully.  

 

One case in point is the law regulating Happy-Meal-type toys, passed about a year and a half ago in San Francisco, and at the time deemed a threat to premium toys nationwide, perhaps worldwide. Some argued that toys encouraged children to order Happy-Meal-type fast food and were thereby a contributor to the rampant childhood obesity.
A delightful surprise to come out of this development in San Francisco is that East Coast academics have looked at the relationshiop between Happy Meal premiums and childhood obesity and found that Happy Meals are in fact more nutritionally sound than much of what is served in school lunch programs. 

Here's to You, Ronald Howes.

From an article I read recently, and I quote: 

"Back in 1963, Ronald Howes--the same man responsible for the invention of such childhood delights as Play-Doh, Spirograph, and the Give-a-Show Projector--created the Easy-Bake oven. Howes sold the idea to Kenner toys (now a division of Hasbro), which officially unveiled the first Easy-Bake oven at the 1964 Toy Fair. The toy that would win the hearts of generations of aspiring chefs quickly began flying off the shelves."

 

 

If Mr. Howes did indeed invent the Easy-Bake Oven, Play Doh, Spirograph, and the Give-a-Show Projector, he is the most unheralded of industry inventors and worthy of nomination and induction into the Toy Hall of Fame! 

 

What other unheralded creators of iconic toys are yet unknown?

The Hidden Benefits of Playing with Toys

The following is paraphrased from the Able Play website, whose mission is "to highlight toys that are fun and appropriate for children, especially those with special needs."

While toys are a highlight of childhood, they also have hidden benefits. Here are several such hidden benefits of a good toy appropriate to the user:  

1. A good toy engenders social connection. Like magnets, toys connect kids socially. They promote interactions between siblings, adults, and friends alike and they encourage inclusion of children with disabilities.

The Tom Cruise of the Toy Industry? The Inventor Buzz

That’s me there. No, not the short one in red whistling at the pretty girl, but the larger fellow in the background with the leather sportscoat on. Dapper indeed. This was taken at the 2011 Chicago Toy and Game Fair where I was signing "Top Trumps" game cards featuring MOI and a veritable plethora of other toy and game inventors. 

Now, In the world of music singers, performers, and songwriters are known and celebrated. In the world of film and the arts actors, directors, and artists are famous and their works known and looked forward to by their fans. In the world of letters, authors are known and their latest books eagerly awaited by their readers. So, similarly, in the world of toys and games, inventors and creators are similarly known, loved, even revered. NOT! Why is that? Why not? No idea. Does it matter? Not sure.

"Nature's Spitball" or "What's the Point of Play?"

A recent issue of the American Journal of Play is devoted to scholarly articles addressing the subject of Free Play as opposed to structured play, organized sports, and the like. One article discusses the consequences of our fearful attitudes toward the world and its dangers to children - essentially the reduction in free play, like the play I engaged in when I was a kid in the steets, backyards, fields, forests, and vacant lots for endless days on end. There are many benefits that may be attributed to such free play.           

The anthropologist Peter Gray examines rule making and rule breaking and the benefits of children playing outside the realm of adult oversight. He considers the reduction in Free Play to be the cause of "the steep rise in the psychopathology of children and adolescents."   

Gray also examines play habits across various species of mammals and the similarities they bear to human children's play. For example, childcare and nurturing play can be seen in primate as well as human female offspring, while more rough-and-tumble play is common in the male young across species. This rough-and-tumble play is a useful means of learning to regulate one's emotions. Anthropologist Peter Gray examines rule making, rule breaking, and the benefits of playing outside the realm of adult oversight.     

Do Toys Promote the Status Quo?

In a little Parisian toy shop, of which the city has almost 800, there are toys so beautiful that it takes my breath away. Wow. I am transfixed by the elegance of the designs - more art than toy, almost. It suggests that children play differently in France, and thus grow up generally to be more gentle and refined, perhaps?

These beautiful French toys are to be played with gently, treasured by parents, and perhaps by the children, as well? Certainly they are meant to be passed down to succeeding generations. Even the displays in the toy shops are elegant, artistic even.

How do toys differ from country to country, I would like to know. How do they differ from culture to culture, and how do these toys promulgate cultural mores and distinctions? How does toy culture differ from Germany to France to Italy? How do these countries' cultures differ, if that may be dispassionately ascertained? How do different cultures influence the toys enjoyed within them, and how do those resulting toys influence and sustain the respective cultures, reciprocally?

An Inventor's Guide to Toy Fair

Recently my team and I tackled the 109th International Toy Fair in New York City - the 30th Toy Fair of my career (I've only missed a couple since 1979, don’t’cha know). What used to last three weeks is more like three or four days today. We knocked 'em dead! We worked feverishly, pitching our products in 23 presentation meetings in addition to a number of other line viewings and meetings over the span of 3½ days of what seemed like real, honest-to-gosh work. 

Please excuse me if I take a moment to strut and crow like a rooster at dawn. It was a highly successful Toy Fair for our Lund and Company team. People loved our products and I predict we will be delighted with the results over time. We wowed 'em, we did, with the variety and innovation of some, and the elegance and humor of other products we showed. We worked harder and more effectively at this Toy Fair than at any other in our company's history. Go team!

So, how does an inventor best tackle a Toy Fair? Should you spend your time on tours of showrooms seeing what others are bringing to market, as we have for so many years? Should you leave Toy Fair with so much information overload that it leaves you struggling afterwards to remember what you saw, where, and what value that information might have, and what new ideas it might suggest, if any? 

The Product is Not the Product

After this most recent Toy Fair excursion it has occurred to me again that the product is not the product. As product designers by training, we may think that it is, of course. It makes sense, but it is not quite true.   

The ultimate product that we create is the relationship that we build and maintain with companies and individuals. That relationship is built by service to the client, and a great product is only a part of that service. We provide the product that our clients need and want, we assist them in the development of that product, and we help them bring the product successfully to market.    

Should Toys R Us Only Sell Toys?

With over 800 stores in the US and 1700 stores world wide, Toys R Us is the world’s largest retailer of toys and games. They report that their core business is strong and growing - and this despite a drop in birth rates, cost increases everywhere, general economic turmoil, and competition from the iPad, iPhone, iPod, and I don't know what-all-else.               

Now, that is good news as to the health of the traditional toy and game business. Some have reported and been of the opinion that seeing non-toy baby goods in TRU signals a replacement of toys by more reliable or profitable non-toy products. But, in fact, placing Babies R Us merchandise in Toys R Us stores increases sales of both toys and baby products. It's a win- win. Those of us in the toy industry want to see - need to see - a healthy, profitable Toys R Us.            

Is Amazon Killing the Neighborhood Toy Store?

I was reading some opinions recently on the expanded toy retailing by Amazon.com. Some of those commenting on the article had interesting points to make that I had not considered before.        

To whit:  

1. Buying local keeps the money in your community, employing your neighbors, keeping local businesses healthy that contribute in many ways to the neighborhoods and communities you are a part of.    

2. Local stores utilize local resources, including attorneys, book keepers, accountants, cleaning staff, and repairmen, in addition to their sales force.              

3. Local retailers may pay local sales tax, and they certainly pay state sales tax and property taxes directly or as part of their rents, all of which benefits the community. Online retailers do none of these things, but instead they siphon off jobs, tax revenues, etc. and etc.            

4. And isn’t it great to have a neighborhood toy store? Isn’t your community richer and more interesting for that?            

I do love toy stores. Browsing in them is a form of entertainment for all.  

What Makes a Good Toy? Let the Experts Decide!

What makes a good toy?   

There is no simple answer and there are many different philosophical stances that people take. For some, a good toy is "green" first and foremost. Some people disdain plastic and prefer toys made of wood. Others do not like toys that are promoted on TV and shop instead in specialty stores for products that are not mass-marketed. I would suggest that kids, of course, don’t care about these things.           

Many do not like their children to play with any form of gun, toy weapon, or other "violent" toy. Some do not want their children, their daughters in particular, to play with Barbie-type dolls or pink toys. Other parents may not want their boys to play with dolls and other gentler and more nurturing products.      

Many people hated the Garbage Pail Kids and Cabbage Patch Kids, though for somewhat different reasons, but kids loved them. Some parents hate toys that require batteries or leave a mess. But kids love them, as well. What kid doesn’t love slime or Play Doh?             

Intra-preneurs - How to Harness the Power Within

Can big corporations not have leaders? The largest toy companies are managed, not led, by competent managers, not dynamic leaders. 

If a product falls behind three weeks in the development cycle, the designers in the trenches inform management to push the intro back a year and risk losing the entire thing. 

This was not the case at Tyco years ago where the charismatic Dick Gray would let his people know in no uncertain terms - they either get it done or he would find someone that would.     

The Scoop on the Most Stupid Toy in the World?

You may have seen this article published in the Chicago Tribune last Thursday, November 24th, entitled "Here's the Scoop on the Most Stupid Toy in the World" by John Kass in which he blasts our Doggie Doo Game.

We did, and we felt it deserved a response:

Dear John,

I was horrified and disappointed to read your review of my game Doggie Doo in your November 24th column titled, “Here's the scoop on the Most Stupid Toy in the World.”

I think where you most completely miss the mark is in your desire to deny children the opportunity to laugh, smile, and be happy. I would say with strong conviction that flatulence and poop have made kids cut up since prehistoric times. Simply put, people enjoy playing this game and have fun, and I'm not going to apologize for that.

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.    

Innovation Keeps the Toy Industry Alive

From the mouths of toy buyers: there is no hot item to drive toy traffic this year - no Zhu Zhu Pets gotta-have-it line, no 'it' item like TMX Elmo to create stampedes. This creates an opening for some exceptional entrepreneurs who might still be able to deliver goods this year.   

One such extraordinary individual and company of note has done just that. 70 days ago they noticed a crowded kiosk in a local suburban 3rd tier market that sold - get this - in middle-America yet, hermit crabs. Live, sticky, creepy, but cute (I guess?) hermit crabs. Do you know how many of these crustaceans are sold as pets each year in the US alone? 40 million! Who knew? Un-freakin-believable!   

So they flew to China, lived in the factory for 40 days and 40 nights, and developed a toy based on this unique and unlikely insight. Miraculously, 70 days later finished goods were landed. Appointments were quickly made with major retailers, the product presented (retailers love it), and orders placed for every piece that can be produced and shipped between now and Christmas.   

Behind Closed Doors at the Dallas Fall Toy Preview

The showrooms in Dallas this year were all buttoned up tight - not so open as it was in years past. I'm not sure the reason, but protection against knock-offs was mentioned, and perhaps when a few companies close their showrooms, others quickly follow suit. It makes for a sterile visual environment with aisles of white walls and posters, and very little product to be seen. Times change.

How to Get Your Product on the Shelves of Wal-mart

One of our new games this year was supposed to be on the Wal-mart shelves in May - on end-caps, yet - but come mid-June it was still hard to find in-store. Wal-mart ordered the goods, took receipt of the goods, warehoused the goods, and then didn’t put them on-shelf, it seems. We checked over 80 stores and couldn't find a single one.             

It turns out, that while merchandising decisions in the fall are company wide, during the summer each individual store manager has a great deal of leeway as to what products they buy and put on the shelf. I had heard this years ago, and it appears to still be true.                

Now, here’s the thing: the opportunity this presents, perhaps little known, is that a small vendor might go door to door, store to store, and sell in to individual Wal-mart store managers, rather than through the Bentonville buyers' structure. By doing this, vendors can demonstrate a sales record that might make it easier to get their products listed chainwide in the fall.            

There are many ways to skin a cat. This might be your entree to Wal-mart. Good Luck. 

Getting Lucky in the Toy Industry

Sometimes it pays to be lucky. If you stick at it long enough and work hard enough, luck can find you. This is not random luck, but luck that is the byproduct of diligence. Just as you can’t get lucky if you don’t buy lottery tickets, and the more you buy, the more likely you will be lucky, so it is with inventing. The more we create, the more likely luck with find us. Fingers crossed.   

Some of the world's most famous inventions were created by luck. Coca Cola and Pepsi were created as medicinal remedies. Plastic was a failed attempt to synthesize shellac. Vulcanized rubber, which makes car tires possible along with a million other things, was an accidental spill that landed on a hot stove. Viagra was a failed attempt at developing a heart medicine. Chocolate chip cookies were an accident. The list goes on and on. 

The Life of a Toy Inventor - Learning to Love the Word 'No'

I occasionally wonder what people think when I am introduced to them as a toy inventor. What image does that conjure up for them? The concepts of 'inventor' and 'basement' or 'garage' seem somehow linked. In film and TV inventors often seem to be society's misfits with bad hair and looney ideas. Am I wrong, or being over-sensitive?

The concept of 'toy inventor', for people of a certain generation, is inextricably linked with Tom Hanks and the movie BIG, which, by the way, featured a stack of our Fireball Island games in the FAO Schwartz sequence. Fireball Island also appeared on a shelf in another movie just before the toy store blew up.

The comment that inevitably follows my introduction as a toy inventor is "Oh, that must be fun!" And indeed it is. But I often say that for most people this is the last thing in the world they would want to do and that they should run, not walk, away from a career in invention. That said, for a certain few, this is the only thing in the world that they should and could ever be doing.

Think Inside the Box - How the Toy Industry Can Start Beating its Own Drum

Psst! Come close. I have an idea I’d like to share with you.            

For years I have been beating the drum on the importance of toys in our society, not just for their obvious utility in the life of a child, but for their profound impact on the world. I have repeated the stories of Frank Lloyd Wright being inspired by a set of building blocks, and of the Wright brothers crediting a toy airplane given them as a birthday gift as the inspiration for their interest and ultimately their creating the first powered heavier-than-air-craft.             

I keep expecting this message to be picked up by others. I keep hoping some noted expert is going to start making the talk show rounds and spreading the word on what is so important about toys and games. What do we learn from them? What are their many benefits to us all? 

Piracy Puts a Dent in the Toy Aisle and Your Wallet

Har Har Har! Shiver me timbers, Matey! Pirates are no laughing matter, and they cost us all $$$. The cost of piracy to global shipping is estimated to be as high as $8 billion a year according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.

 

Did you know that shipping a container of toys from China costs about $3000? On top of that, shippers such as Maersk have to add additional charges of up to $500 per container on those that are shipped through pirate-infested waters. 

            

If your 40’ container holds 3000 units of product, that is $1.00 hard cost per item, which translates to $5.00 at retail. If the product passes through risky waters the number is higher still. 

Toys Save Lives

A toy is a powerful thing. 

 

This is shown in a recent study titled "Touching a Teddy Bear Mitigates Negative Effects of Social Exclusion to Increase Pro Social Behavior," from Social Psychological and Personality Science, and reported in the Wall Street Journal.

According to the study, people who were subjected to social rejection (and who of us hasn't, at least on occasion, been subjected to social rejection?) sought out more social interaction after touching a teddy bear than another group who saw but did not get to touch the teddy bear.

 

Just the act of holding a teddy bear changes how people react and interact with other people by 100%.    

      

The positive power of toys on the individual, both child and adult, and on our society as a whole is little understood and even far less acknowledged.

Games Go Digital - What Do We Lose?

I've heard the game business took a hit last year, though some would beg to differ. Certainly, Hasbro Games and Mattel Games have been affected, and there are no doubt several factors at work here.         

One explanation I have heard is that iPhone and iPad apps now take up Mom’s time and attention, and at $.99 apiece they seem a remarkable value compared to a $9.99 or $19.99 game at the store. It may be that the state of the game business is partially at fault, through some failure in the marketing, or packaging, or advertising, as well as in the nature of the product itself. Perhaps there is an overabundance of brand extensions or an overabundance of un remarkable product on the shelves today.

Solution: Make it Easier to Buy Toys!

I used to go to Subway, but now that Jimmy John's is in the area, we just let them bring us our sandwiches, even if it is just one sandwich. They will deliver one sandwich? That’s nuts! But we order from them regularly, so maybe it is not so much nuts as it is genius.

Trillions of people, more or less, order apps for iPhones, iPads, and iDon’t know what elses. Here, with the touch of a finger, you get the product instantly delivered to you, and the charge shows up later on your bill. How easy is that? No typing in your credit card number, address, etc and laboriously et cetera. You just touch the screen, and you're done. The product is delivered instantaneously, and you never even have to pay for it, seemingly, as it shows up as part of another bill. How seductive! How does the toy industry compete with that?

Games Go Digital? What Farmville Could Mean for the Game Industry

Games go digital? What happened? Hasbro Games, a key profit driver for the company, was down well over 30% last year. Another major game company bemoans the pressure on retail prices, and laments the idea that games are going digital. It is the Mom who buys games for the family, and these days Mom is on Facebook playing Farmville, instead of combing the toy aisles for good old fashioned family game entertainment.          

Hmmmm. I don’t like the sound of this one bit. So are games to go digital? Spending $1 for an addictive game app I can play anywhere seems like a great value compared to $24.95 for a real-world board or plastic action game. While you do pay $50/month to own the device for which you paid hundreds of dollars to obtain, the added value of the game is great and the additive cost is minimal.           

But if something is gained, then what is lost? Facebook and smartphone app games are no substitute for face to face, hand to hand, head to head game play, whether on the field, the floor, or the table. 

What do we need to do as game inventors, creators, makers, and marketers to make our games essential, desirable, can’t-get-enuffable, gotta-have-it products? We can never be cheap enough. We can’t sell a game for a dollar and make a profit, so price is not the answer here.

The Ever-Changing Toy Industry: Emerging Global Markets

The Toy Industry is about to go global, eventually and inevitably.         

The emerging middle classes of India, China, and elsewhere around the world are going to change the toy business and every business. China alone has over 800 million kids under the age of 15. That's a lot of toys. We know little about the business practices and patterns of daily life in these markets.           

Getting in sooner rather than later might be important for success in the long term. On my first visit to South America long ago I was stunned at the size of the cities, and it dawned on me that there are as many or more people living in South America as in North America. 

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger - The Toy Industry Continues to Impress

We once worked very closely with a prominent Spanish toy company, now since faded from glory. Back in the day they were a powerhouse in Spain and Europe, dominant in dolls and plush, and run by some truly wonderful people whom I had the pleasure to get to know over the years.

I made a number of trips, expeditions really, to their factory and offices near Alicante on Spain's southern coast, the Costa Azul of the eastern Mediterranean. It was here, as it was explained to me, where the soil was so poor that people long ago took up doll and toy making as a way to support themselves when farming would no longer cut it. It was here that much of the Spanish toy industry is quartered. 

Fighting for Us - A Hero of the Toy Industry

The Army has many soldiers and a good number of generals, but there have been fewer heroes, Medal of Honor winners, and the like. True heroes are few and far between, and perhaps one of the acid tests of a hero is whether his or her actions primarily benefit others.          

To be a hero you must be acting for the greater good, in the interest of others, even if it is at your own expense. Many Medal of Honor winners died saving others. It is always a shame to lose such great men and women, but that is one of the things that makes one a hero.         

The toy industry has had many great leaders, larger than life individuals like Louis Marx, Marvin Glass, and others. They were and are the generals of the industry, but that alone is not what a hero makes. All generals are not heroes, though some no doubt are.         

The toy industry has had heroes, though they are by definition rare. One such toy industry hero, in my opinion, is Mr. Rick Woldenberg. He has spent a great deal of his own money and a couple years of his life standing up to the US government, Congress, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission on our behalf. He is relentlessly, tirelessly, and sometime even exhaustedly pushing back against the implementation of some of the most ill-conceived safety legistlation the world has ever seen. 

Doubling Wages in China

I recently heard from a very knowledgeable Chinese factory source that the Chinese government intends to double factory wages in next five years. This applies not just to toy factories, but to all types of factories. Labor represents 20% to 50% of a product's cost, so the prices of everything we buy can be expected to rise dramatically over the next five years. Commodity prices are already up dramatically and some are still rising due to hikes in oil prices.   

Why is Toy Fair in New York in February?

 

It's a good question, and no one in the industry seems to know the answer for certain though many have theories. It is an enigma wrapped in a conundrum - a mystery.         

A long-time industry friend recently told me that the Toy Fair tradition is over 100 years old. He said it started in a hotel where buyers would come to many different rooms to see wares that had been brought back from Europe, which was the source of all toys back in the 1800s. I believe the toy building itself was once that very hotel.

My friend went on to elaborate his theory that toy shops, having depleted their shelves over the Christmas holiday, would need replenishment. Leaving for Europe to scout for new stock to fill their stores, toy traders would board steam ships and make the Atlantic crossing, traveling to Europe to find and acquire toys for the following Christmas season. They would then board the ships with samples and steam back across the ocean to America, arriving back in New York once more - the entire trip lasting six weeks or so. 

An Inventor's Strategy for Success at the New York Toy Fair

Each year before the New York Toy Fair my team and I meet to to arrive at a strategy for the show. Should I go alone, or should we all show up in force? Should we make new product presentations while we're there, or not?

We review the past year's strategy and results. Who did we meet with and what were the results? Did we sell anything? Did we come up with any new ideas, or find new companies to work with?

For many years we did not show new product at Toy Fair. We were above schlepping suitcases and shipping boxes of prototypes around town. We saw that others who were not so proud sold every chance they got. They saw every meeting as an oppor

Factory Innovation Changes the Face of Plush

Long ago all plush toys were made in a place far, far away (50 years ago or so, and in Korea, specifically). They were sewn together in huts, I suppose, not even in factories. Thus, white plush toys were not available - they were all brown or some other dark color because they all arrived at retail dirty. White plush would only become available years later when the plush manufacturing industry moved to Taiwan.

The American Red Cross and the Healing Power of Toys

I have often written and spoken on the power of toys in an individual’s life and in our world as a whole. Toys have the power to change a life and to change the world.           

Francesca Edwardson, the head of Chicago's Red Cross and an angel here on Earth, by the way, agrees with me on the power of toys to heal. She has encountered this power personally many times in her work.            

DID YOU KNOW . . . that the Red Cross goes to every residential house fire in the city of Chicago and surrounding suburbs?            

DID YOU KNOW . . . that as soon as the fire department gets the call, the Red Cross gets the next call, and they show up as the home is still in flames with offers of shelter and debit cards loaded for use by the victims to buy food, clothes, and other necessities?           

Are Inventors a Dying Breed?

I recently had the distinct pleasure of meeting and talking with John Ratzenberger, the actor from Cheers, the voice of the pig in Toy Story, and also a sailor, an inveterate inventor, and a singer of old, sad sailor songs as my friend Mary described him to me. He is the inventor of the Ecopack and the packaging machinery to produce it, and many other inventions, as well.

It turns out that John is an advocate of returning vocational training to high schools. People who can make things with their hands, fix and repair, invent something on a workbench rather than on a computer monitor, are a dying breed. Their average age is 56. His mission, and I agree, is that we need a new generation of inventors, builders, experimenters, and tinkerers, which perhaps You Tube is just now beginning to inspire.               

Ten years ago, when we contacted Chicago’s great vocational high schools looking for possible part-time student help for our toy shop, we were out of luck. All the great trade schools in Chicago, like Lane Tech (an enormous school with a student body greater than the population of town I grew up in), were now college prep schools. There seemed to be no vocational high school education in all of the great City of Chicago. Impossible!   

Today, it is companies like Lund and Company and others in the toy industry that train young inventors in the hand-on skills needed to be successful in the world. 

I am proud to have trained many who have since gone on to work in the industry far and near.            

Many things must be first made by hand, experimentally, by tinkering and trying, testing, experimenting interactively - the Edisonian process. It requires hand skills, knowledge, and skills using tools and equipment. There is no other way for some things to come into being. It is like scientific research. It is not done in solid works - that is for design and engineering.

Invention is a hands-on sport using milling machines, lathes, saws, drills, vacuformers, mold-making and casting, soldering and welding, as well as more modern tools like 3D printers (I sure would like one of those for Christmas, Santa, Bill Gates, or whoever is listening) and CNC machines. Industrial-Age tools have no replacement today.               

So I say, "Go John Ratzenberger, Go!" I agree, I will back you, and maybe I can help in some way. We need those who can build, invent, repair, tinker, create on the workbench surface those things that cannot, and will not, come into being any other way. 

Prices Take Historic Jump - What's Next for China's Toy Factories?

Business is full of surprises. While I often tell myself that all surprises are not bad, it seems often that most are. Each year new surprises crop up - brand new, unanticipated, never before seen unfortunate turns of events.               

Last year it was labor costs skyrocketing, and they continue to rise, though at a somewhat predictable rate that both factories and toy companies can factor into their plans. Before that it was availability of electricity. And then there is the ongoing rise in the value of China’s currency.             

But cotton and polyester prices have taken a historic jump in recent weeks as a result of increased demand. One factory team has reported that in the last five weeks cotton prices are up 20% and the pricing offered to the factories is spot pricing, with the material's prices changing several times a day. Toy companies are holding on orders and factories cannot accept orders without knowing what the fabrics will cost tomorrorow, or even later that same day. Cotton producing countries are cutting exports to meet their own needs first.              

The price of polyester was up 70% recently, a key fabric in the skins and filling of soft toys. It has since fallen back to just 35% higher, and today the price seems to be on the rise again.               

If factories can’t take orders, and toy companies won’t make orders, then there will be an inevitalble shortage of soft toys on the shelves 3-6 months down the road, and those that do hit the shelves will be another 10-20% higher in costs. That will be bad for the toy industry, but the garment industry will be hit even harder. In 3-6 months we may see garment prices up 20-50% according to the factory's estimate.     

And on top of that ABS plastic prices have recently risen another 30%. Again. 

If factories can't take orders, and toy companies won’t make orders, then after the Chinese New Year factories will not be able to afford to hire workers that they will need for the rest of the year. If they can’t hire in first and second quarters, then later in the year they won’t be able to get the workers they will need, at any price, to man the factories for the high season when factories are humming making goods for Christmas.             

Hmmmm, not good.             

I wonder what it will be next year. Global recession? Been there, got the T-shirt. Toy safety recalls and increased costs due to new safety requirements? Check. Been there, done that. Cost of materials and labor up? Yup. Survived that, too.             

It makes me glad I don’t own a toy factory.             

Maybe the worst is behind us and now we will have seven years of good luck and prosperity. That is my prediction. That is my story, and I am sticking to it.          

I wish you all the very best in the coming new year and beyond. 

The Waning Creativity Quotient

We are all familiar with the intelligence quotient, or the measure of one's intellectual capabilities. There are in fact seven distinct measures of intelligence, including Visual/Spatial, Verbal/Linguistic, Logical/Mathmatical, Musical/Rhythmic and others.             

Similarly, there is a measurable Creativity Quotient, and like the IQ, it has been tracked for 50 years to see how it has changed in the population of school-aged children.                

For decades the measured Creativity Quotient in children rose regularly, year by year. A good thing indeed. Until 1990, that is. Since then it continues to decline year after year. It has been characterized as a creativity crisis.             

Why the decline? While the answer to this question is being studied as I write this, there is speculation that kids are spending more time playing with video games or other similar forms of play, and less time with traditional toys that utilize more traditional play patterns.             

A decline in our national level of creativity will not bode well for our ability to compete and thrive in an increasingly competitive world.            

Toys matter. Through play with toys children create their own story lines and scenarios, try things, explore, discover and learn about the real world. Through play with toys children develop their creative muscles. Our national creative muscle has made our country great.          

Toys and play really do matter to us all.