Show Buzz: Fall Toy Preview
By Staff -- Playthings, 10/16/2008 6:29:00 PM
Oct. 16, 2008—Toy manufacturers looking toward 2009 had plenty of new product to show buyers at the Fall Toy Preview here in Dallas the past three days. There was much enthusiasm on display, even as products reflected the growing challenges toymakers are facing in reaction to rising costs or production delays due to safety/testing issues, sourcing concerns and changing consumer demand for “green” products.
For eco-friendly upstart Sprig, which crafts its products from injection molded Sprig Wood, a proprietary material that combines wood and recycled plastic, the road to market has been a slow one due to its commitment to produce as much of its product as possible in North America, and out of green materials. Its Adventure Series line of preschool figures that feature battery-free, electronics-enabled vehicles powered by hand cranks, has finally hit specialty toy store shelves after the better part of a year of anticipation.
“We've just been on shelf for a month, but we've had a lot of early reorders,” CEO Craig Storey told Playthings, noting that specialty stores have been supporting the product now that it's finally available. “We think we've got it down,” he said, regarding the process of fine-tuning the production of its products from an entirely new material. “The most important thing was execution in Year 1. Now we're more comfortable in our own skin.”
In 2009, Sprig hopes it will continue to receive a warm reception for an expansion of its offerings, including the addition of animals to its Adventure Series of characters and vehicles, and a new for ’09 line with new styling, Sprig Hollow, which offers dual-use playsets and vehicles in bee and butterfly themes that can be taken apart and used as gardening, water and sand toys. They’ll come in recyclable packaging with seed-infused papers that can be planted to grow wildflowers and herbs. Sprig will also distribute Eco Trucks, a line of Sprig Wood construction vehicles, and a new modular indoor/outdoor sandbox produced in Europe. Another new line, Story Builders, will combine basic building blocks with decorated panels from recycled chip board.
Doll maker Goldberger said its electronics-enabled products shipped after January 2009 will contain mercury-free batteries. The added costs for the company will be offset by the fact that an anticipated baby boom—and the theory that the baby toy category has a gap when it comes to safe dolls for the youngest kids—is expected to keep business growing, CEO Jeffrey Holtzman told Playthings. “We give consumers what they're looking for,” Holtzman said. “We are not just a commodity. We've always fought that battle.” The company's newest additions—including the soft organic cotton Seedlings dolls and expansions to its Sensitive Baby line, which is crafted especially for kids with asthma and other allergies—appeal to both mass and specialty.
Meanwhile, 10Vox, which burst on the scene with its Kookeys plush and online game, has completely overhauled the property’s primary website—admittedly rickety in its original incarnation—to offer half a dozen 3-D worlds and more than 100 interactive games. “Compared to what it was, the site is night and day,” said company rep Alex Reece.
In addition, 10Vox has launched Tracksters, a MMOG that features die-cast collectible cars that can be customized and then raced in-game. The world launches this month with three tracks (desert, city, oval) and 12 cars, and will be expanded with additional tracks monthly, as well as additional vehicles. The site’s sophisticated game play and graphics were drawing a lot of attention, Reece said, noting that kids will be able to race each other from around the world when it expands to nine translated languages by the end of the year. Retailers such as Hallmark, Learning Express and Hobbytown USA have already signed on, with expanded distribution planned for spring 2009 into larger retailers with options for exclusives. At the moment, though, product is back ordered through the end of the year.
In other new product highlights:
Basic Fun has taken over distribution of Saboba’s line of classic Fisher-Price reproductions, and will distribute them to specialty stores in 2009. The company is also introducing new impulse items for its popular licenses like Ben 10, Bakugan, Yo Gabba Gabba!, and Star Wars/Clone Wars. Basic Fun will also introduce versions of its Take Along Twister game featuring licenses for M&Ms, Mr. Men & Little Miss, and Paul Frank, as well as a junior Sesame Street version.
Jakks will expand its Disney Princesses products to include items tied to the fall 2009 release of the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Platinum Edition DVD that incorporates red styling, as well as product that ties into The Princess and The Frog, which stars Disney’s first African-American princess. Hannah Montana will get a new 22-inch doll series. A licensed Star Wars collectible marbles line, Marbs, will also debut.
Playmates will tout Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' 25th anniversary; introduce to U.S. kids the popular European trading card with 360 mini figure line, Gormiti; and offer a wide selection of action figures, vehicles, playsets and role-play products based on J.J. Abram's May 2009 Star Trek prequel, as well as for Terminator: Salvation. “We have a nice position going into early summer with two big tentpole films,” vice president of licensing André Lake Mayer told Playthings. Specifics of the Star Trek and Terminator lines were being kept strictly secret. For girls, the company’s Disney Fairies assortment will include an expandable tree house playset that can be built on throughout the year. Other hot properties for girls in 2009 include the Australian import H20, a Nickelodeon series about three teenage mermaids, which will get dolls and playsets, and iCarly, which will see a new line primarily focused on youth electronics, novelty and role-play items.
Mega Brands will expand its selection of preschool toys with new Nickelodeon and PBS licensed playsets.
Uncle Milton will focus most of its 2009 efforts on a line of science and exploration toys based on Star Wars. “We feel it's the best thing to happen to science in a long time,” Frank Adler told Playthings. “There's definitely an interest out there among retailers in [licensed] brands, and if you've got a brand like this, it goes a long way to attract attention.”
Time2Play, the play environments maker, was attracting retailer attention with redesigned packaging that better shows off its products’ special features and attracting earth-friendly advocates with a plan to replace all of the PVC framing in its play spaces with pieces made of bamboo. As for its ’09 products, the company will follow up its marquee talent show-themed play space with Strike A Pose, a fashion model-themed space, and a beauty parlor styled environment. It also showed off a Puppy Training Camp, and for boys with an interest in boot camp-style play, the company created a camouflaged Obstacle Course with inflatable army jeep tires to run through, and even offers an army jeep as an add-on purchase.
Oddly enough, Zizzle had a similar idea. It gives the dance mat craze a boy-oriented twist with the Tire Trainer Footwork Mat, designed to bring a little bit of football footwork practice home. The electronics-heavy toymaker was also cleverly combining all of the major Disney tween brands on its ’09 products as a hedge against what could be a quieter year for those properties as Disney reloads for new TV/film projects featuring the likes of High School Musical and Camp Rock in 2010. Its other highlights included iTeddy, a U.K. import that’s a teddy bear with a small video screen in its tummy; and a hand-held electronic version of Jenga.
Endless Games continues to expand beyond its core board game business with a plan to further grow its budding puzzle line after a good reaction to its initial designs, notably those based on the Broadway play Wicked. It also revives an '80s tabletop favorite with The Official Foam Tennis Set and introduces two tweaks to classic games: X-Ceter-O, a version of tic-tac-toe that is guaranteed not to end in a tie, and Quackgammon, a shorter, kid-friendly version of backgammon.
Paradise Horses, after only a year in business but already armed with a license to market replicas of characters from the Bella Sara trading card game, will add a new scale (1:12) to its line of horse replicas, and give them a simpler style of articulation.
Revenew Sales & Marketing showed off games, puzzles and room decor items it planned to import from France’s Djeco. The specialty-market friendly designs were created by children’s book artists.
Delta Creative, the pro-quality art supplies company that’s quietly made inroads into the toy market in recent years primarily through private label projects, backed up the promise of its elevator door marketing campaign with Music Color, a unit that looks like a record player and that converts drawings into music by converting colors into distinct tones. It’s one of those products that’s easier seen than explained.
Another craft kit company with past private label success, Horizon will grow its Glitter Lava assortment to include a clear version, Glitter Ice, that can be custom colored-in with markers for making more elaborately decorated projects. The company also plans to market HT Racers, a customizable R/C vehicle system that was the runner up in a recent season of American Inventor.
Kittrich is upping the educational allure of the common “dig something out of a chunk of hardened sand” play pattern by giving kids the chance to unearth both real coins and real paper money from around the world in a series called Pirate Booty. It also plans to produce versions that include authentic coins from ancient Rome and the Holy Land.
Funrise was showing off redesigned packaging for its Shelcore infant and preschool products to give the entire line a more unified look. For its Tonka toy line, it added a Wells Fargo-style armored truck that doubles as a piggy bank with electronic intruder alarm. And to take outdoor play indoors, it has created Pods, playsets that kids can fill with dirt, sand or water and fold up to take with them to places where sand, dirt or water may be hard to find—in their parents' apartments, for example. The “pods” themselves are modular for ease of expansion.
Die-cast maker Maisto also unveiled a playset, Street Fire Parking, a first for the company. It gives Maisto’s perfect replicas of European luxury cars a place to let their hair down. The company also gets more playful with its tie-in with Electronic Arts’ Need For Speed video game franchise. Its Need For Speed Undercover cars contain codes that change the cars in the video game to match the paint scheme of the die-cast. Porche fans take note: it’ll be the first line of authorized Porche replicas featuring non-factory paint jobs.
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