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March, 2005
"Seen Anything Good"?
by Chris Byrne
(Toy Fair International, New York
City, 2005)
This is a question we hear frequently at Toy Fair. People in the halls of
the Toy Building are stopping us and asking in the food court of the Javits
Convention Center. Even friends of ours that have nothing to do with the
toy industry, know when it's Toy Fair and ask if we've seen anything good.
Despite how often this question is asked, when your job is to try to get a
sense of the whole business in just a few short days, it's never possible to
be fully prepared with an answer. Sure, there are things that stand out as
good candidates to be hot toys in the coming year, but one when starts to
think about the totality of a child's play experience, it takes a lot more
work than just a quick decision shared in the hurly-burly of a trade show.
As we go through the fair, and the one in Hong Kong and others we
attend, the job is to get a real sense of what's out there—an overall
sense. Then, the real work begins—trying to see what will resonate with
kids not in the context of a beautifully created showroom but in the
context of their lives.
Each year, more than 150,000 toys are displayed at Toy Fair, and of those
about 50,000 or so are new and have never been seen before. How does
one even begin to pick? Well, as with many consumer products, it's much
more an art than a science. Trying to handicap what are going to be good
toys is a combination of knowledge about kids, knowledge about the
culture as a whole and what kids' tastes are. Over the past twenty years
it's become a lot more difficult, and almost any contemporary parent will
tell you that one of the big changes is that kids consume more and more
like adults than ever before. No wonder, when we surveyed kids ages 8-11
last year, the top items they hoped Santa would bring them weren't toys
but rather iPods and cellphones. Finding that toy that's going to "wow"
kids is more challenging than ever before.
And the challenges facing parents in this highly consumer-driven culture
are more complex than ever before. It requires a constant consciousness
of the variety of things young people know about and want—and the
perpetual balancing act required by making sure the products you bring
into your home reflect your values. It can be stressful when a parent's
values and a child's demands are at odds, but it can also be a time for
greater communication among families, and that's not necessarily a bad
thing. In fact, educating kids to be savvy, considerate and discriminating
consumers is an important part of family dynamics in our contemporary
culture, where consuming, thanks to the Internet, can be a 24/7/365
experience. We consistently find that today's kids are remarkably savvy
about what they want—and particularly what they want to spend their own
money on. And, as much as no one ever wants a child to be disappointed
in what he or she buys or receives as a gift, that can be a learning
moment as well. As one father said to us when talking about his son's
saving up his money to purchase something that ultimately was a
disappointment, "There aren't too many times he's going to do that, and
I'm glad it was $12 and not $12,000 that helped him learn the lesson to
look more closely before buying."
One of the goals we set for ourselves at the various Toy Fairs we attend is
to try to identify the overall cultural and product trends that manufacturers
are responding to and that will be represented in the toys and youth
electronics products coming out this year. As we start sifting through the
boxes and boxes of information we gather during these events and
talking to manufacturers and retailers—and a few families—there really
are two overall trends that you'll be seeing this year.
The two overall trends this year (2005):
The trends we have noted are significant because they really represent
the culture that we live in. Of all consumer products, toys historically have
given the most accurate snapshot of the culture at any given time, and
this year it's particularly fascinating. On the one hand, which will surprise
no one, we're seeing an explosion in high tech gadgets that are geared to
young people. On the other hand, and what some might call diametrically
opposed, we're seeing some of the best classic toys and toy executions
we've seen in years.
Let's look at each of these trends briefly.
Today's kids live in a technological world, as we've said before, and their
comfort with technology, while surprising to many adults, is really nothing
new. Today's kids have never lived in a world without sophisticated
technology and as adaptive as we humans are right from the cradle,
today's kids have taken to it with gusto. It's not surprising to see a
5-year-old navigate Web sites. We know an 8-year-old who, never having
read the manual, daily re-programs his mother's phone with different ring
tones using music his mother loathes. This is the height of hilarity to him,
and a source of aggravation to her because even after having read the
manual she doesn't know how to change the tones back. Kids' mastery of
technology means that products likes WowWee's Robosapien and the new
Robo Raptor that have been designed to be played with intuitively create
a fluid play pattern for a 10-year-old, while an adult pores over the
manual. At the same time, you'll see a big boom in communication
devices, ranging from Hasbro's Chat Now, that mimics a real cellphone in
its communications capabilities without incurring the costs to a real
cellphone offered by Mattel and using the My Scene doll brand. These
may be practical communications devices, but from a play standpoint,
what they accomplish is allowing children to feel part of the culture and
begin to experiment with adult-type interactions and roles. (This is no
different from girls' toys in the 1920s, many of which were designed to
prepare them to be housewives and mothers.) One of the key roles of
play is to help children prepare to enter the adult culture as it is, and toys
that do that have always been a key component of the toy business, for a
long time (centuries if you want to count the toy swords and kid-sized
stiffened linen armor that Medieval kids played with and other items of
that nature).
On the other hand, we're seeing a boom in so-called "classic" play. While
this surprises some who think that kids who are engrossed with technology
would never deign to pick up a crayon, that's certainly not the case. As a
result, we've seen some incredible innovations from Crayola (like
Eraseable Markers that are way cool and new Slick Stix twistable crayons
that we can barely put down because they feel so neat to draw with) and
strong lines from companies like LEGO and Playmobil and even wonderful
games like Cranium's new Cranium Family Fun Edition. All of these
engage children in different levels than technology does—and they're
important both developmentally and for their sheer entertainment value.
As we look at toys—and as you do, too—and try to understand why such
diverse toys may be interesting to and engaging for kids, it's important to
remember that while "play" is a huge word, there are four distinctive
modes of play that all children engage in:
- Social/Emotional—This is stuff that kids do with one another
or can
be very story-driven as with action figures and dolls. This is
expressive play but it also helps children identify themselves as
individuals and in the context of their culture. - Cognitive—This is learning play, the kinds of things that
LeapFrog
and VTech specialize in. It's all about acquiring information in
structured contexts that they can then apply in other situations.
Children love this because they naturally hunger for information—
because it allows them to feel part of the more grown-up world. - Physical—A crucial, if undervalued right now, part of
play. The
chemicals (not just endorphins) that children release during physical
play helps them to concentrate, focus and retain information. It's a
critical part of play. - Affective—Literally, this means to affect something in
the world. We
see this in construction toys or art and activity play. It's no surprise
that just as the video game and education categories have boomed,
so has this category. Children very naturally seek to express
themselves, and it's why lines like Revell-Monogram's Style Studio
help them to do that in satisfying and exciting ways.
Very often we talk to parents who tell us that their child appears to
have
"regressed" if they put down the GameBoy and pick up a paintbrush.
Not
at all! One of the wonderful things about technology is, as we often say,
that it has simply made the toy box bigger and offered a wider variety
of
experiences to children as they use play for it's overall purpose—to
discover and express who they are. Our job as parents and caregivers is
to sort through all the stuff out there and choose, to the best of our
ability, those toys that will help the children in our lives become
themselves in the healthiest, safest and strongest way possible. As
always, our goal at TheToyGuy.com is to help you do that, and it starts
by
spending the winter looking ahead at what's coming down the toy pike.
Final analysis?
Careful consumption is the name of the game, in the final analysis. Just
as we adults express our values and our personalities through what we
consume, children do the same, and what they learn as they consume and
experience the world through play will help position them for vital and
exciting lives. Now that our feet have (almost) stopped throbbing from
walking the miles and miles of showrooms and exhibits, we can tell you
that there is much for you and your kids to experience this year, but
most
importantly, whatever the products used to embody it, play is alive and
well as we move into 2005. That's good news for all of us.
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