Cliff Annicelli

Nuremberg Toy Fair Day 1
February 8, 2008

Greetings from the Spielwarenmesse, the Nuremberg International Toy Fair. It's my third consecutive year here at the Western world's largest toy show, with its more than 80,000 visitors, 2,750 exhibitors and other impressively large stats. The highlight for me so far, it being only my first day here, is that the show is now 95 percent nicotine free thanks to Germany having joined the ranks of nations banning indoor smoking at the turn of the New Year. Not only can I see the rafters of Hall 11.1 for the first time—turns out they are a lovely pastel hue—but food tastes better cigarette-free after all. Apparently, those doctors were right ... 

Got a late start today. Flew into Munich yesterday afternoon and spent the night in that fair city. Typically excellent people watching last night along the apparently mandatory pedestrians-only main shopping street/historical city center. Saw a Michael Jordan theme store, but no toy stores in sight. Several Starbucks offered the opportunity to indulge in one of my great weaknesses, the devilish Lemon Slice, in a more Continental manner than usual, with espresso served in actual China. But, thanks to the good old US of A, Deutschland has discovered the concept, finally, of "coffee to go"... so no more standing around sipping. I've got places to be, Hans! I do believe that to go cups alone accounted for at least 17 percent of the more chipper than usual outlook of the local populace this morning on the bullet train from Munich to Nuremberg, which, were it ever to come in conversation again, shall refer to as the Munchen Cannonball. At one point this miracle train topped 140 mph — all without rippling the surface of my venti house blend, in a rail car as silent as a church on Saturday. Despite, the hype about German efficiency, though, we did manage to pull into the Nuremberg station 14 minutes late. ...I knew that 140 felt a bit lazy. (Total time from the Munich train station to the Nuremberg train station, which are over a 100 miles from each other, then the U-Bahn subway directly to the trade fair's own dedicated stop: 1 hour 35 minutes.)

Arrived just in time for the annual meeting of the International Toy Magazine Association, of which Playthings is the U.S. representative then went directly to my major task for the day: sounding coherent while on a panel of foreign journalists asked to discuss the state of our respective toy markets at the show's well-attended "Branchforum" lecture/discussion series. (It's held in the middle of one of the 12 exhibit halls so there's considerable impulse traffic from people wandering by.) I learned that the state of the toy business in the U.S. is mirrored to a large degree in the U.K. and to a lesser extend in Italy, where independent retailers continue to have a much stronger presence than in either the U.S. or Britain.
 
Prior to whatever I said during my stint as representative for the entire U.S. toy business, show goers were treated to a fascinating data dump of facts and figures comparing trends in the U.S. and major Western European toy markets by an NPD Group representative. Let me say for the record that NPD is much more forthcoming here than at home... For example, I learned that U.S. toy sales in 2007 were flat. Unfortunately, I don't know what the in Euros figure they quoted translates to in dollars quite yet -- I left my conversion charts in New York, but regardless, that's information NPD typically doesn't give out until Toy Fair in the U.S. Other Trivial Pursuit-worthy tid bits included:

• The average toy purchased in the U.S. has gone up in price. Whereas in 2001, 61 percent of toys purchased were $5 or less (as ranked by unit sales), by 2006 that figure had dropped to 55 percent. Sales of toys priced in the $5 to $9.99 range grew to 22 percent from 21. And sales of toys priced $10 and over rose to represent 23 percent of sales, up from 18 percent five years earlier.

• "Smart toys" represented 24 percent of U.S. toy sales in 2006, up from 18 percent in 1999.

• The U.S. and Australia are tied when it comes to major Western nations with a sweet tooth for licensed toys. 27 percent of toys sold in both countries were based on some property or another. In comparison, only 13 percent of toys sold in Germany and 19 percent in France are license-based.

• India has the largest percentage (20%) of kids ages 0 to 14 in the world. And that the U.S. (6%) is the only Western country on the top 10 list of nations with the largest percentage of the world's 14-and-under population.

• Indonesia is the world's fastest growing toy market, but only because spending is so low (on average just $5 a year) that any increase has an inordinate impact. And if you're going to chase after new business abroad, target the countries with oil.  

• The U.K. is the only market among the major Western democracies in which action figures ranks among the Top 5 toy supercategories. And infant/preschool is pretty much the top sales category in all of them, except Italy, where dolls remain number one.

Speaking of the U.S., the American pavillion this year is almost exactly the same as last year — tiny — but one first-time exhibitor told me he had already scored a $50,000-plus order on a single item from an Italian retailer. "This trip's already paid for," said the toyco's rep, and showed me the paper to prove it. 

Hopefully, there'll be similar stories tomorrow. 

Posted by Cliff Annicelli on February 8, 2008 | Comments (0)