L Is For Lego, Leapfrog, L.O.L. Surprise! & Lincoln Logs – A To Z Of The Toy Business

L Is For Lego, Leapfrog, L.O.L. Surprise! & Lincoln Logs – A To Z Of The Toy Business

LEGO

Lego is arguably the most iconic toy brand, played with and enjoyed by many generations. Playing with Lego has been proven to advance the capabilities and skills required for STEM careers, and as such millions of engineers and scientists owe part of their success to having played with Lego when they were young. Lego is both the biggest toy company in the world (by $sales) and the biggest toy brand. The entirety of their just under $7billion USD revenues derive from the Lego brand. There is no other brand which comes close to achieving this level of revenue from one brand.

Lego as a company first began way back in 1932 when Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen started making wooden toys. The earliest forerunner of the now iconic and ubiquitous Lego brick came to market in 1949. Lego today trades around the world, dominating the Construction toy category in nearly every market. The company also has hundreds of retail stores selling their products. The latest plans from the company suggest growth to around 800 retail stores in the short term.

LEAPFROG

Leapfrog has been a market leader in electronic learning toys since back in the 1990s. when co-founder Michael Wood found it hard to teach his son to read and developed a prototype for what would become Leapfrog’s ‘Phonics Desk’ product. After battling with VTECH to lead the kids educational tablet device market, Leapfrog was eventually acquired by VTECH for a reported $72m USD.

LOL SURPRISE!

L.O.L. Surprise! Has been a sales juggernaut since launch back in December 2016. The brand was launched on the back of the massive unboxing trend but has since extended into a full Doll & consumer product licensing brand. There have been very few toys over time which have launched and hit No. 1 best selling toy and then stayed in the market with further brand extensions. We expect L.O.L. Surprise! To be a long-term perennial brand going forward.

LINCOLN LOGS

Lincoln Logs is an iconic construction toy which was first invented around 1919 and was inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame in the USA back in 1999. According to reports, the inventor, John Lloyd Wright modelled the toys based on a Japanese hotel design for which his own father was the architect. Wright was also influenced by Abraham Lincoln (hence the name!) and the frontier history of the USA.

Do you need help to source toys & games? We help people from all around the world to find reliable, cost-effective factories. We have delivered $tens of millions in cost savings for our clients. For more information on how we do this, check out our services here: www.KidsBrandInsight.com/services

Have you listened to our Playing At Business podcast? We talk about selling toys & games, interview successful people from across the toy business & we look at key trends in the toy & game business: https://playingatbusiness.libsyn.com/

K Is For Kenner, Karma, Korea, KB Toys & Ken – A To Z Of The Toy Business

K Is For Kenner, Karma, Korea, KB Toys & Ken – A To Z Of The Toy Business

Kenner

Kenner is best known for being the company who introduced Star Wars toys to the market, producing more than 100 unique figures and selling more than 300 million units between 1978 and 1985. Today nearly every family movie has licensed merchandise including toys. Star Wars started all that. While it seems an obvious opportunity today, back in the 1970s Mego (the prevailing figure toy company of the time) turned down the opportunity to produce toys based on the Star Wars franchise (possibly the biggest mistake in toy business history?).

Kenner stopped producing Star Wars toys after the initial trilogy of film releases faded away, but restarted again in 1995. Kenner also brought to market other iconic toys aside from Star Wars including Easy Bake Oven and Spirograph. Kenner Parker was acquired by Tonka in 1987, which in turn was purchased by Hasbro in 1991. Star Wars figures remain a key product line for Hasbro through to this day, making Star Wars toys one of the most important, commercially successful and iconic toy ranges of all time.

Karma

The toy industry is often a surprisingly small place. If you operate by screwing people over, it tends to be quite likely that you will get some kind of karmic payback. But also, if you are good to the people you meet over the years around the toy trade shows and in between, then you will build many lasting fruitful business relationships and friendships.

Korea

Korea is not normally an area of focus for toy & game companies, but with a population about the size of England, and with an advanced economy, consumer products sales in Korea can be strong. Obviously, there are some significant language and cultural barriers to doing business there, but nevertheless, for companies looking to grow their export sales, Korea deserves consideration.

KB Toys

KB Toys was a leading U.S. specialist toy store chain, which at one point in the 1990s had more than 1,300 stores. The company originally started as a wholesale ‘candy’ store back in 1922, and the chain lasted for just under 90 years, being in business for longer than Toys R Us in the USA. As such KB Toys was a pivotal player in the growth of the toy business, and many still mourn the loss of the 2nd best known toy specialist retail chain.

Ken

Behind every great woman is a great man! Ken became part of Barbie’s world since 2 years after her own launch in the market. Although the pair separated for a spell in the noughties, Ken has been known and loved by generations of children. He also appeared in the third instalment of the Toy Story franchise playing a baddy. Not a lot of people know that Ken was named after the son of Mattel founders Ruth & Elliott Handler.

Do you need help to understand the toy & game business? We help people from all around the world to understand and successfully enter the toy business. For more information on how we do this, check out our services here: www.KidsBrandInsight.com/services

Have you listened to our Playing At Business podcast? We talk about selling toys & games, interview successful people from across the toy business & we look at key trends in the toy & game business: https://playingatbusiness.libsyn.com/

J Is For Japan – A To Z Of The Toy Business

J IS FOR JAPAN

Japan has played a major role in the toy industry globally. At one point in time Japan was a major source of toy production (going back to the 1970s). Following the decline of toy sourcing from Japan as the economy soared and brought Japan to the forefront of the global economy heading into the 1980s, Japan built into one of the major toy markets of the world. For a long time, Japan was 2nd in size only to the U.S. market, before being overtaken by China a few years back. Japan is still today though the 3rd biggest toy market in the world, which is surprising to some people as most ‘Western’ toy companies spend so little time looking at Japan. Japan is so culturally different versus other markets that it can be quite confusing for companies looking to sell their products into Japan, but nevertheless the sales potential is significant if you can find a way to enter the market!

The other major contribution by Japan to the global toy industry is the wave of animation and product concepts which keep on coming out of Japan’s quirky companies. From Tamagotchi to Takara Tomy, and from Pokémon to Power Rangers, Japan has been a major contributor to kids’ entertainment content and toy development. Pokémon of course is one of the biggest toy franchises ever, and with Hasbro acquiring Power Rangers for around $500m there can be no doubting Japan is a good place for western toy companies to go hunting for opportunity.

Do you need help to understand the toy & game business? We help people from all around the world to understand and successfully enter the toy business. For more information on how we do this, check out our services here: www.KidsBrandInsight.com/services

Have you listened to our Playing At Business podcast? We talk about selling toys & games, interview successful people from across the toy business & we look at key trends in the toy & game business: https://playingatbusiness.libsyn.com/