History
and Hysteria : Vampire Invade europe, Japan's Humbert
Humbert, French Firefighters Go Macho
FROM PUBLISHING TRENDS
(MARCH 2005)
Just
as it seemed the somnolent retail toy market was perking
up, with strong late-December sales and words like "optimistic"
floating through the press, this year's lackluster Toy
Fair served as a reminder that it's going to
take more than a nuzzling T-Rex to bring the industry
out of its slump.
The
largest to date, boasting 1600 exhibitors from 31 countries,
attendee registration for "Play Meets Profit"
was reportedly up 18%, and although the miles of snaking
line dividers seemed to suggest that organizers had
planned for a descent of the hordes, the absence of
people waiting in lines called into question where exactly
that 18 percent was hiding.
The
newest addition to the fair was the Reading, Writing
and Rhythm section that grouped all of the publishers
- from industry giants Scholastic and
HarperCollins to unknown independents
Knowing and Growing and ee
publishing - in one aisle. The section also
attempted to cash in on the booming children's audio
market, an endeavor that might have been successful
had the aisle of choice not been aisle 3000, located
in what turned out to be the Jersey of the Javits, (which,
in a year filled with talk about experimental marketing,
and the importance of product placement in innovative
venues, was ironically ineffective).
Apart
from Scholastic and Klutz,
which were buzzing near the entrance, Time Warner,
Disney, HarperCollins,
Silver Dolphin (the AMS
imprint), Wiley, Evan Moor,
Random House, Harcourt
and Candlewick were all empty. In some
cases, not even the exhibitor was present, and the stands
were left to fend for themselves. Although Usborne's
distributor EDC (also empty)
said they didn't notice a large difference in crowd
size after being subsumed by RW&R, other publishers
were more pessimistic, noting that not only was attendance
sluggish, but that buyers who did manage to wend their
way to the far end of the fair were doing much less
on-the-spot buying than in years past.
Not
withstanding the above, Reyne Rice,
Toy Trends Specialist for the Toy Industry Association,
said that they had received a "very good response"
to the Reading, Writing and Rhythm section, and that
it "will be back next year." But to the casual
observer, publishers who opted out of the RW&R conglomeration
- like publishing newcomer University Games
(with their enormous right-at-the-front-door spread),
Lisa LeLeu Puppet Show Books, and Soft
Play - seemed much more pleased than those
who didn't. One vendor near the back wall managed to
put a positive spin on things, however, as he sat eating
chocolates in his empty booth. "It could be worse,"
he said. "I'm just happy I'm not across from the
guy with the washboard ties."
KAGOY is the Word
"Kids
are getting older younger" or KAGOY (as the sassy
industry acronym goes) was the catch phrase of the moment,
after high tech toys for tots offered a sunny respite
from an otherwise gloomy overall retail decline. According
to The NPD Group electronic learning
and youth electronics toy sales in the infant/preschool
and learning/exploration categories were up 10% to 19%
respectively, putting a spotlight on the diaper demographic.
"Pre-School
is hot," said Chris Campbell,
SVP Marketing at Publications International,
emphasizing what has long been known to be a pillar
of licensing activity. "Kids are constantly exposed
to progressively more sophisticated, interactive opportunities,"
he said, "and if you look at product going forward,
the majority will have some level of interactivity with
an electronic component."
With
90% plus market share in the sound books business, PIL
has a slew of interactive books for young kids. Their
hallmark product, the Story Reader,
is a portable electronic case that holds refillable
books, and automatically recognizes the page that the
child is on, reading out loud accordingly. After selling
1.5 million units since it debuted in 2003, PIL has
plans to crack the even younger market by introducing
a My First Story Reader aimed at children
six months to age three (and featuring Sesame
Street, Winnie the Pooh and
Baby Einstein) this fall.
One
of the most exciting PIL sound books, however, was the
Sponge Bob cash register book that
will come fully equipped with a scanner that scans barcodes
inside the book and then posts the total on the attached
cash register's LCD screen. The register acts as a calculator
as well, with a functional money-filled drawer that
pops in and out. For those shopping-savvy toddlers who
know that plastic is the way to go, the book also comes
with a credit card that keeps track of purchases, allowing
the child to learn the joy of addition and subtraction
by racking up debt.
KAGOY
doesn't just mean trickle down high-tech, however, and
already a "pendulum swing toward low-tech products"
can be seen as well, Rice pointed out. Anticipating
the stress that such a frenetic techno-gadget world
can induce, parents are jumping the gun and buying low-tech
to counteract the onslaught, snatching up yoga videos
from Kids Musical Yoga and relaxation
CDs from Joy Stories for their newborns
to three-year-olds.
Now,
if only Starbucks would come on board
with chai flavored breast milk…
Can You Say Buen Negocio?
As
an aside, Spanish was everywhere at this year's fair,
from product lines (1/3 of PIL's line now has Spanish
language equivalents) to the chatter in the aisles.
In one of the newest successful developments in the
growing English/Spanish asociación,
Baby Einstein was licensed by Disney to AMS' Silver
Dolphin for distribution in Mexico. According to Jeanne
Mosure, Disney's VP Global Retail Markets and
Sydney Stanley, AMS’ VP Product
Development, the joint venture, Silver Dolphin
En Espanol, launched with 12 titles in 2003,
followed by 8 more in 2004, and was hugely successful
(fueled, no doubt, by Costco's growing
presence south of the border). This early success prompted
AMS/Disney to test distribution for the same Spanish
language titles in the US via PGW.
Plans for this year include expanded distribution to
Chile and Argentina.
©2005
Publishing Trends
