Lillian Stone
Reporter, BBC Worklife
December 9, 2023
When it’s gift season, toys are always at the top of the ‘gifts I want to receive’. How did these toys become the ‘must-buy items of the year’?
1996 was the year when ‘Tickle Me Elmo’ (a plush toy of Elmo, the main character of America’s representative children’s program ‘Sesame Street’) caused panic throughout the United States. The marketing was so incredibly successful that these fluffy plush toys became a holiday season must-have. However, the doll manufacturer Tyco mispredicted demand and made too few Elmos. As a result, a struggle broke out in toy stores among people trying to obtain limited stock. Additionally, one Elmo was sold for $7,000 in the ‘resell’ market.
The Tickle Me Elmo craze of 1996 was the most extreme example of how a well-marketed toy could capture the hearts of holiday shoppers. However, it seems like a new ‘it’ toy appears every holiday season. Clearly, there are many factors that contribute to a particular product being most popular in the market. But today, a much more complex set of factors must come together for a toy to win the hearts of shoppers.
'social atmosphere'
If you look closely at the advertising that major retailers put out during the holiday season, you'll see that they're pouring huge marketing dollars into the most popular toys. This phenomenon has continued since 1952, when ‘Mr. Potato Head’ made history as the first children’s toy to appear in a television advertisement. This toy sold more than 1 million units in its first year of release.
Today, the toy market where retailers compete is extremely fierce. However, what has made this market more complicated are social platforms such as ‘Tik Tok’ or ‘Roblox’ that can advertise toys directly to children. Joanna Feeley, CEO of Trend Bible, a British trend research agency, said that considering this situation, brands that create a “social atmosphere” for shoppers have the highest chance of success.
Philly said, “(Because there are many channels for information transmission), we are all well aware of the news pouring in around us.” “Currently, humanity is embroiled in two extreme wars and is experiencing a cost-of-living crisis. There are a lot of loud messages related to negative problems in real life. “Children absorb these signals just like their parents.”
Fili said successful brands in this context are those that create toys with values such as resilience, fun and emotional intelligence in mind.
The toy Tickle Me Elmo was so popular that it led to a fight at a store in 1996. Photo source: GETTY IMAGES
Photo caption: The toy Tickle Me Elmo was so popular that it led to a fight at a toy store in 1996.
The Danish brand ‘Lego’, founded in 1932, is a brand that consistently ranks high on the toy popularity charts. According to 'Adobe Analytics data' examined by BBC Worklife, Lego sets were among the best-selling products on Cyber Monday this year (the first Monday after the US Thanksgiving holiday, when the largest online discount event in the US is held on this day). Philly chose ‘Lego Flower Bouquet’ as one of the brand’s best-selling products, and TikTok videos tagged with this product have a total of over 30 million views.
Lego, which considers “free play” and “curiosity, experimentation, and collaboration” as its corporate values, is realizing many social values. Philly said that this is how a ‘brand with passionate fans’ is created.
This approach also played a big role when Marina Kidekel founded the plush toy brand ‘Huge Horses World’ in 2022. This brand was selected twice in ‘Parent Magazine’s ‘Toy of the Year List’ within a year of its launch. Several media outlets, including ‘Good Housekeeping’ and ‘Time Magazine,’ also gave favorable reviews to this brand. Kidekel owes her own brand's early success in part to collaborating with experts, she said. Huge Horse World produces toys in collaboration with experts who understand the ‘social atmosphere’ of children and adults, such as child psychologists and pediatricians.
Kidekel also considered ‘Mesh’, which became famous by certifying toys containing ‘mental, emotional and social health,’ as an important indicator. “Toys that are rich in emotional and intellectual elements are coming back to the market,” he said. “Just being a toy might not be enough,” she said. There has to be some enrichment or interaction element.”
production investment
While it is important to understand the social mood of shoppers, supply is also an important factor that can determine the profits of a potential hit toy.
“Once there is evidence that a trend is starting to form, it’s a matter of how much the brands and retailers want to invest in that product,” Feeley said. “Some companies may understand trends properly but do not invest enough, so product production cannot support demand.”
Robert Overstreet, a professor of supply chain management at Iowa State University's Ivy College of Business, recently introduced an example of an 'it toy' that failed on the supply side. He said, “It is estimated that Disney lost about $3 million in 2019 due to ‘Baby Yoda.’” According to him, at the time, Disney delayed the mass production of this toy to coincide with the release of the science fiction series ‘The Mandalorian’ rather than the holiday season.
It is true that Baby Yoda's popularity has increased due to the limited quantity. However, Overstreet explains that this also created a large market for pirated products that drained money from Disney's pockets. Of course, it's up to the brand to decide whether increasing social awareness of the toy by limiting production is worth the potential loss of revenue.
Efforts toward an ‘imagined future’
Ultimately, popular toys come from a combination of marketing, consumer psychology, just-in-time production, and a little foresight. Most toys are made over several years, including design, manufacturing, sampling, and inventory storage. Toy designers will create toys by calculating everything from environmental factors to educational trends in what Philly calls an “imaginary future.”
“Toy designers need to imagine what life will be like two years from now, not only for the person receiving the toy, but also for the person buying the gift,” Feeley said.
These predictions are not perfect, but there is a clear path forward for some of the 'it' toys. Some of the toys that have taken this path may feel very familiar to millennials.
Recently, there is a toy that took first place in the best toys of 2023 selected by American retailer ‘Target’, British retailer ‘Argo’, and industry publication ‘Toy Insider’. This is the new product ‘Bitzy Interactive Digital Pet’ from Canadian toy brand ‘Spin Master’. This toy is about the size of a ring box, and when you open the box, an image of a friendly pet appears on the digital screen.
On the Spin Master website, this toy is distributed with the message, “With your love and attention, help your baby pet grow into an adult dog and a super bitch.” However, this product is similar to the popular digital pet toy ‘Tamagotchi’ released by the Japanese toy brand ‘Bandai’ in 1996. This may stimulate the nostalgia of millennials, who are now becoming parents and buying toys for their children.
The reasons why certain toys become popular can vary from year to year. Social atmosphere, social media, nostalgia, etc. are among the factors that influence its popularity. But one thing is certain. It is true that many children around the world wait for toy gifts.