Marketing Toys Is Serious Business
Talk to a dozen toy marketing experts here at the American International Toy Fair, the nation’s biggest annual toy trade show, and you’ll get a dozen opinions about how to market toys.
In the volatile, fast moving and fiercely competitive $12-billion toy industry, some marketing strategies are commonly followed. But almost every big manufacturer emphasizes its own individual variation.
Industry executives hope that at least some of those variations will be particularly effective this year, in view of predictions that 1986 will be less than a banner year.
Growth in retail toy sales in 1986 is expected to only equal last year’s increase of about 8%, which was “at best . . . a fair year,” said Alan Hassenfeld, president of Hasbro, a leading toy maker, and chairman of the Toy Manufacturers of America, sponsor of the Toy Fair.
The fair, held in various showrooms and other locations throughout Manhattan, began its 83rd annual run last Monday and ends Wednesday. It is expected to attract about 17,000 wholesale buyers and 850 exhibitors, both record highs for the event, fair spokeswoman Donna Datre said.
Developing ‘Megaconcepts’
Among diverse marketing strategies, one which repeatedly came up in interviews here was described by Alfred R. Kahn, executive vice president of toys for Coleco Industries, as “developing megaconcepts.” Megaconcepts, he explained, lead to single products that can be expanded to become a major line of products.
One of the first toy companies to develop a major line from a single product was Mattel, the Hawthorne-based toy giant.
Mattel began marketing Barbie dolls 37 years ago. Today, Barbie has expanded into a highly profitable toy line that includes everything from a coterie of friends to a personal Barbie-sized shower with running water, a Corvette and more clothes than you’re likely to find in the average Beverly Hills bedroom closet.
This year, Mattel will initiate a major marketing change by increasing its new toy shipments in the first three quarters to 65% from about 55% of its annual dollar volume.
The goal, Mattel President Thomas J. Kalinske said, is for consumers to become familiar with Mattel’s new toy lines earlier than usual and long before the Christmas rush. Such familiarity, he said, should increase Christmas sales of new toy lines. Throughout the year, Mattel will also ship enough of its older lines to keep shelves well stocked.
This year, Mattel expects to sell “well over $200 million (wholesale)” in new lines, Kalinske said, adding that he believes it is the biggest new-line issue in industry history.
“We’re trying to get more consumer purchases in the first eight months of the year,” Kalinske said. He noted that, five years ago, consumers bought 28% of their Mattel toys in January through August. Now they buy 38%, he said.
“The way we did it was pretty simple but required a tremendous effort,” Kalinske observed. “We developed, shipped and advertised our lines four months earlier than before.”
Filter Down to Children
Before putting a toy on the market, Coleco’s Kahn looks for a “hot button.”
“We try to touch a hot button in society,” he explained. “In other words, we try to identify an emotional appeal that is common to the population as a whole and that will filter down to children.”
As an example, Kahn cited his company’s most successful product, the Cabbage Patch Kids. Their “hot button,” he said, is the almost universal desire to have a baby “that is yours.”
Stephen Schwartz, senior vice president for marketing at Hasbro, sees a trend toward “niche marketing,” which he described as “finding a specific need in the market and filling it.”
“The purest niche marketing,” Schwartz noted, is exemplified in Playtime With Baby, a “play system” made by Playskool, a division of Hasbro. The new product includes a mat, a strong plastic frame for suspending toys or helping a baby stand up, a book of suggested activities, a related audio cassette and an assortment of toys.
More Quality Time
Increasing numbers of working mothers away from their babies all day created the niche for Playtime With Baby, Schwartz said. The product is designed to maximize the quality of time those mothers can spend with their babies, he said.
He said a new Playskool marketing effort is peripherally related to the niche marketing approach exemplified by Playtime With Baby. For the first time, he said, Playskool’s broadcast ads are directed at parents (primarily mothers) and children. The industry rule of thumb normally has been to try appealing to one group or the other.
Fisher-Price Toys’ ads for years have appealed to both parents and children. “We pioneered the concept of going after moms using print in the late ‘60s and TV in the very early ‘70s. We were at that time virtually alone,” said Jim Tindall, vice president and general manager of Fisher-Price.
Today, Tindall said, “the reality is that kids are gaining the upper hand in terms of toy selection.” He said that, just seven or eight years ago, 5-year-olds were the youngest children demanding specific toys, and now, largely because of advertising combined with preschool education in nursery schools and at home, children mature sooner, so 3-year-olds are making similar demands.
Flexibility Stressed
Bill Bracy, senior vice president for marketing at the Kenner Products division of Kenner Parker Toys, stressed the importance of flexibility in advertising to appeal to the rapid changes in youth culture.
He singled out Kenner’s new Care Bear commercials, which, he said, “have a music video feeling.” While other toys use a similar advertising motif, Bracy observed that “we think it’s a breakthrough in advertising for a product that has already established itself.”
A special situation exists at Axlon, a Sunnyvale, Calif., toy firm founded by Nolan Bushnell, who invented the computer game Pong and founded Atari in 1971.
Axlon specializes in computerized toys, most of them animals that respond to noise by moving or talking in animal talk.
Tom Zito, Axlon’s vice president for marketing, said that having sales personnel in stores to personally explain Axlon’s toys to potential customers has proven to be an excellent marketing tool.
Between last Thanksgiving and Christmas, Axlon had hundreds of employees in toy stores showing customers how its A. G. Bear and Petster lines worked. “It was very expensive, but it paid off,” Zito said.
Bob Goldberg, executive vice president for marketing at Worlds of Wonder, the Fremont, Calif.-based toy company that last year produced the hot-selling Teddy Ruxpin animated talking bear, agreed that point-of-purchase explanations are an important marketing technique for computerized, animated toys.
Four Concepts
Worlds of Wonder’s point-of-purchase displays are not run by employees, Goldberg said. Instead, the toys are activated on a display that shows how they work.
Goldberg said that four marketing concepts must be followed if a product is to be a winner. First, he said, the product must be right for the market in terms of timeliness and quality. Second and third, advertising and public relations must be effective. Finally, he said, retail displays using some kind of movement or sound must be used.
“Otherwise,” he said, “your product is just one of 100 boxes on a shelf.”
