Giants in Toyland : A Consolidated Industry’s Creativity Gap Is Showing
The Dr. Dreadful Food Lab, one of the hot new “activity toys” on display here at this year’s Toy Fair, provides all the ingredients a kid needs to cook up gourmet concoctions like Chewy Gummy Bugs, Tasty Monster Skins and Ants on a Log. Good fun, for sure, and appealing to what Tyco Toys calls the gross food craze.
To the disappointment of some in the toy business, though, the creation of toys these days too often takes place in what might be called the Dr. Hollywood Hit Lab. Take a high-profile movie or cartoon series, stir in some impressive packaging and a big TV advertising budget and smear it across a product line that might run from dolls to cars to board games.
With luck, the result will be tasty profits--but without much creative nourishment. The toy industry today is dominated by a few big companies selling mostly through a few big retailers--a situation that results in cautious product strategies that increasingly rely on high-profile entertainment tie-ins or the recycling of proven hits.
Even some big-company executives worry that the absence of interesting new ideas--as opposed to interesting new licensing opportunities--may be hurting the business. Wholesale toy sales grew at an anemic 1.6% rate last year, far below expectations.
“There’s a need for more creative introductions, more newness ,” said James L. Block, senior vice president for marketing at Mt. Laurel, N.J.-based Tyco, the nation’s third-largest toy vendor. “As the big companies get bigger, they’re less willing to take risks.”
One need look no further than the clusters of names at Toy Fair to see the dramatic consolidation that has swept the toy business in recent years. Industry leader Hasbro, based in Pawtucket, R.I., now owns Playskool, Kenner, Milton Bradley, Parker Bros. and even the Cabbage Patch Kids. El Segundo-based Mattel’s stable includes Fisher-Price and Hot Wheels.
To a great extent, these companies rely on generating new sales of familiar products: Mattel this year was touting the 35th anniversary of Barbie, bringing out a collector’s edition of the original doll.
Hasbro, undaunted by mounting parental concerns about play violence, countered with GI Joe’s 30th anniversary. Tyco boasted of a full make-over of Matchbox cars, a line it acquired last year.
And when it comes to developing new toys, the big companies increasingly are turning to Hollywood. One of Mattel’s major plays this year involves Universal’s movie “The Flintstones.” Figures representing John Goodman, who plays Fred Flintstone in the movie, will vie with Fred dolls based on the original Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
Disney’s upcoming animated film “The Lion King” was everywhere at the Toy Fair. Hasbro, Mattel and other vendors are gearing up to make everything from soft, purring lion dolls to board games and play sets based on the theme.
The licensing frenzy extends far beyond Hollywood movies. Showrooms were stuffed with toys linked to TV shows--everything from Star Trek to Barney to the World Wrestling Federation--and video games such as Street Fighter. Even venerable standbys were dressed up in the latest media craze--would you believe Monster Truck Play-Doh?
Then there are the made-for-toy-sales television cartoons, the crucial driving force in the “action figure” category, one of the fastest-growing in the industry. Lewis Galoob Toys of South San Francisco hopes for a smash hit this year with Biker Mice From Mars action figures, developed with the cartoon of the same name. “High ratings are absolutely essential to the success of the line,” Galoob Chief Executive Mark Goldman said. The enthusiasm for action figures springs largely from the success of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their upstart rivals, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The cartoons, in effect, teach kids how to play with the toys by giving them a story line.
It’s a good commercial formula, but not one that sits well with all parents.
“It’s highly seductive, but after you get it home it becomes boring. It can’t live up to all that flash,” said Mary Purpura, a San Francisco-based writer and mother of four. Toys that allow kids to build their own fantasies are more enduring, she says.
The major companies’ obsession with mass-market hits may be leaving opportunities for smaller players that take such an approach. Said Jacob Miles, a former Tonka executive who now heads Minneapolis-based Cultural Exchange Corp., which markets toys that acknowledge ethnic and cultural differences: “Hasbro and Mattel are looking more at each other than at the market” and are vulnerable to creative upstarts.
But it is hard for small companies to break in, partly because toy retailing is dominated by a few mass merchants, led by Toys R Us and Wal-Mart.
“It’s harder and harder to shop here,” lamented Gretchen Van Tassel, a buyer for the Carson-based mail-order company Lakeshore Learning Materials. The big vendors, she said, “are really only interested in their 15 big buyers.”
And vice versa.
Toy Sales
U.S. toy manufacturers posted a lackluster 1.6% increase in total wholesale shipments in 1993, excluding video games.
Shipments, in millions of dollars:
Category 1992 1993 Infant, preschool $1,065 $1,091 Dolls 2,009 1,654 Plush 761 870 Male Action 563 709 Vehicles 1,221 1,234 Ride-ons (excluding bikes) 517 517 Games/puzzles 1,055 1,116 Activity toys 1,494 1,675 All other toys 2,863 2,868
Source: Toy Manufacturers of American Inc.
