5 Key Features Of Successful New Toy Launches
Every year hundreds of thousands of new toys come to the market globally. The majority of these toys achieve an acceptable amount of sales, but comparatively few – probably as little as 5% or 10% achieve real success. Partly this is due to statistics, with so many new toys many will not achieve full distribution, and even fewer will achieve physical prominence in retail.
There are though 5 key features of most successful new toy product launches. None of these are likely to surprise – these are quite basic points, but they are so fundamental that we feel it is worth running through them:
Obvious & compelling product features
Children are not that complicated…unlike adults with all their social niceties, angst and complexity. Toys for children should therefore usually offer a very straightforward product concept/proposition which is clear, obvious and above all compelling. A classic example of this would be the Hatchimals Wow product from Spin Master, where the character has a large extending neck which extends to a very surprising extent – the clue is in the name ‘WOW’! Children find this type of WOW very compelling. If your product concept is very complicated and takes a lot of explaining the odds are that you won’t achieve success with it.
Packaging which showcases the best of the product
Packaging is the most fundamental marketing tool in selling toys & games. The bottom line is that anyone looking at your product will decide to buy or not based as much on the packaging as the product itself. Complicated packaging which fails to show what the product is about usually does not work. We recently worked on a project running a ‘post-mortem’ on why a major new product launch didn’t work. The reason for launch failure turned out to be the packaging. The product was basically cocooned in an artsy container which said nothing about the product or why a child may want the product (!).
Effective marketing to the right target market
Note that this is not necessarily about the biggest budget, because money is easily wasted in toy marketing. The critical success factor is effectiveness, how can you present the product to the most potentially interested consumers for the most efficient cost, with a message and product demonstration which is both compelling and clear?
Retail support
Not every product will achieve full mass market distribution, and sometimes that’s fine based on how niche the product and product category is. But without retail support, success is unlikely. One of the major risks toy companies face is developing and investing in products which don’t get picked up by retail. The bigger the company, the more likely it is that major product launches will be picked up, but every toy company can tell a story about a major retailer refusing to back a big new product launch and effectively killing the product in the process.
Effective merchandising
There are so many products on the market that trying to stand out from all the other brightly coloured and eye-catching toys can be very difficult. Aside from the joys of trying to rank online via complex algorithms, actively investing time, effort and marketing funds at the point of sale is a critical area of concern. From ‘Try Me’ features on products which need to be played with to close the sale, through to CDUs, FSDUs, video displays and more, this area typically yields much greater ROI on marketing investment by way of increased sell through than traditional broad blast marketing.
We run a Consultancy business helping toy & games companies get ahead. For more information, check out www.KidsBrandInsight.com/services
Our Managing Director, Steve Reece, works with a limited number of companies as a non-executive director, independent board director and as a board advised. If you are interested in finding out more about this, check out the link to our service above.