Business Unusual

Even though by the time you read this the American International Toy Fair will have ended nearly two months ago, this is the first issue of the magazine to have been put together in its entirety since the show closed.

As always, it was good to see what the industry had to offer, whether it was to note what stuck in the end after many months of previews in Dallas and Hong Kong for the major firms, or to see entirely new lines from smaller or often brand new companies publicly unveiling their products for the first time. As usual, there were lots of toys that were familiar—some eerily so, and for which we're already wondering when the lawsuit announcement will come—others that were novel twists on things we've seen before, and a few that were unexpectedly innovative.

But what I've come to think about most when I think back to this year's Toy Fair, and in the weeks since, hasn't been the specifics of products that were on display. Instead, what's most shaped my impression of 2008 to date has been the degree of change that was in the air at the show and around the industry since; change that's bubbling up in a grassroots sort of way. And that's a very good thing.

Besides all the negative ink that flowed following the toy recalls of the last half of 2007, I do think that, more and more, the toy business on some level has been altered by the experiences of the last year, even if it hasn't yet changed in ways visible to consumers, their watchdogs or the government. Some of those changes are readily apparent in this month's issue of Playthings.

Our cover story on toys made in the USA, for example, asked whether the immediate post-recall period's overwhelming demand for toys “not made in China” has continued past the holiday season. The consensus, at least among those we spoke to (and who admittedly have a stake in perpetuating that desire into a more steady business), is that yes, it has.

Our story on multicultural toys was probably the easiest story we've ever done on that segment of the market that I can personally remember. Why? Because there's so much more of it to go around than there had been just a scant few years ago, fueled largely by a generation of fledgling manufacturers and retailers, most of whom are operating online, who've come into the toy business specifically to provide more dolls, for example, that look like their own and their neighbors' children, or to demand more from companies that for too long acted as if there weren't enough of those children to bother marketing to, or for that matter, too many retailers who believed people weren't interested in buying dolls that didn't look like their stereotypical customers.

Several of our stories, including columnist Richard Gottlieb's latest Minding Your Business piece, look at the continued growth of child-friendly “virtual worlds” and what toymakers are doing in that fast growing arena to successfully merge traditional play patterns with those electronics-based experiences that for so long have been blamed for the dreaded “age compression” that's generally been the fall guy for the toy industry's sagging performance in the 21st century.

Other tweaks to the industry's business as usual were well under way when the recalls happened last summer and are also illustrative of a shifting mind-set in toyland.

Thanks to a small group of industry insiders that decided it was time to do something tangible towards ending the entrenched wink-wink, nudge-nudge of knock-offs in the business, the Toy Industry Association now has a Code of Ethics on the topic. While the code as enacted may be more church lady than cop when it comes to impact, at least it's gotten a ball rolling towards a state of greater mindfulness about the industry's behavior amongst it members. And thanks to the legacy of the lead-related recall mess, its heartening to see there's an increased impetus for the industry to highlight what it's doing differently—and well—these days.

As for those toys we spent all winter looking at, we've compiled a few pages worth of products we saw and particularly liked. It's a far from exhaustive selection, but the year is still young and we've got many months of magazines still to fill.