The carnival-like frenzy over fad toys such as Pokemon and Furby grows more intense every season.
Starting with Cabbage Patch dolls in the mid-’80s, which triggered near-riots in store aisles, the life cycle of seasonal fad toys has taken on a pattern that becomes sharper and more intense each time around.
In 1996, parents scoured stores for Tickle Me Elmo. Last year, they overpaid on EBay for Furby toys. And with Christmas 1999 five weeks away, they’re hunting down Pokemon trading cards and video games, the hottest toys this season.
Increasingly sophisticated children, profiteering grown-ups and a relentless media have combined to speed up playthings’ passage from obscurity to must-have to sale bin, toy industry analysts say.
Toy marketers try television spinoffs, licensing deals, video games and jazzy Web sites to save their overnight sensations from oblivion by transforming them into reliable staples such as Mattel’s Cabbage Patch. But it doesn’t always work--note the failed comeback of the once-hot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures.
“There’s sort of a lottery mentality,” said Chris Byrne, author of “The Toy Report,” a weekly newsletter about the toy industry. “People call me up and say, ‘What should I buy 80 of and sell on EBay?’ I tell them, ‘Look, nobody’s going to put their child through college on Millennium Barbie.’ ”
The process to anoint the year’s hot toy has settled into a regular rhythm.
Jostling for the throne begins in February at the industry’s annual Toy Fair in New York. Retailers eyeball the latest offerings, looking for “the ‘wow’ factor,” said Mark Rosenberg, spokesman for Vernon Hills, Ill.-based Tiger Electronics, Furby’s creator.
Come late summer, the media kicks in. A Rosie O’Donnell plug sent Tickle Me Elmo, a giggling stuffed toy based on a Sesame Street character, skyward. A Wired magazine feature fed the Furby frenzy.
In the fall, Consumer Reports’ children’s magazine, batteries maker DuraCell and most parenting magazines release toy surveys.
“There’s this need to grab onto one thing,” Rosenberg said. “The media gets tired quickly of talking about the same [toy].”
By December, it’s time for long lines, the ritual footage of parents slugging it out in the toy aisle and scalping.
Hot toys usually enjoy two holiday seasons of heavy sales, analysts say. Consumers grabbed Elmos from store shelves in late 1996 and 1997, more than 1 million of them each November and December combined. But in early 1998, Elmo hit the wall--sales dropped to about 50,000 a month.
“It had a great run, but it was clearly here today, gone tomorrow,” said Ed Roth, vice president of NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y. market research firm that tracks toy sales for the Toy Manufacturers of America.
Even at their peak, fad-toy sales often do not match best-selling perennials, Roth said. Holiday Barbie ’98 raked in more revenue than Furby last year, for example.
“We’re not considered ‘hot,’ we’re just Barbie,” said Lisa McKendall, Mattel’s director of marketing communications.
Unlike Barbie, most hot toys also fade swiftly into collectible oblivion.
The EBay tote board tells the tale: Pokemon--27,666 items for sale, some garnering bids of more than $2,000; Furby--1,360 items, most selling for less than the original $30 retail price; Elmo--24 items, all under $20.
Lake Forest mom Dana Bryant said she came nearly unhinged two years ago trying to buy Elmo for her then-1-year-old daughter. Elmo has long since been dispatched in a garage sale, and now her 7-year-old son is pursuing the momentary object of desire--Pokemon trading cards--with single-minded zeal.
“I hear about Pokemon 24-7,” said Bryant, who has already placed an order to secure her son a pack for Christmas. “He looks at me and says, ‘What can I do to help you make money so we can buy cards?’ ”
Many parents say they have grown weary of relentless pre-Christmas toy pressure and resist pleas to buy the latest thing.
“We’re not about to go to an auction where they’re asking $500 for some toy,” said Eric Ray of Dana Point, whose son is lobbying for the Pokemon Yellow video game. “It’s not a heart-lung machine. If we don’t get it, we don’t get it.”
Hot toys typically have broad appeal, crossing gender lines, and in recent years have featured technology that makes them into interactive companions for children rather than mere objects. Costa Mesa-based Playmates Toys Inc.’s highly touted Amazing Ally doll, for example, remembers children’s birthdays and can recognize a teacup if it is placed in her hand.
But manufacturers acknowledge that they have limited control over the alchemy governing which toy emerges from the pack each year--and that no amount of promotion or adult strong-arming can make a toy hot if kids don’t buy into it.
“Godzilla didn’t catch on with them,” Byrne said. “Star Wars has been a solid product line but it never caught on as a fad.”
Today’s children are tougher to impress and quicker to move on, their attentions fragmented by the Internet, TV, movies and other media, analysts say.
“Basic merchandise doesn’t sell the way it used to,” said Jim Silver, publisher of Toy Wishes, an annual toy-buying guide. “Kids used to play with toys until they were 12. Now they’re losing them at 9.”
Hot toys targeted at children age 3 and under--Teletubbies, for example--are parent-driven and seldom last beyond their allotted two holiday seasons, Silver said.
Items that ripen successfully into brands, such as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, often have a TV or video link that can sustain children’s interest, he said.
Since Furby lacked that foundation, most industry pundits assumed its sales would drop off, but Tiger Electronics’ patient brand-building strategy seems to be working. Even after the holiday frenzy subsided, consumers continued to snap up at least 500,000 Furbys a month.
Tiger focused exclusively on the original toy for the first year, Rosenberg said. Then the company released a second generation of toys, Furby Babies, and licensed Furby sleepwear, backpacks, costumes and other products. The next step: a TV show or movie featuring the characters.
“You can’t overexpose the toy in the first year,” Rosenberg said. “The easy thing is to take the quick gain and get out. We want to stick around.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
Shelf Life
Toys’ life cycles are becoming shorter, as kids move from one heavily promoted toy to the next. Tiger Electronics has kept Furby going with product spinoffs and other tactics. But in many cases, soaring sales eventually come back down, as have those of Elmo dolls.
*
Elmo, March 1998: 52,000
Furby, September 1999: 846,000
*
Note: Figures are latest available. Source: NPD Group
