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FEATURE LEAPFROG 61
The company is aiming to build on the huge success of the LeapPad with its next range of product innovations
“We’ve got over 10,000 fans on
Facebook now and we only launched Facebook this year. We’ve got a great relationship with our mummy bloggers. So for us, we’ve got a very good digital network of people, as well as TV.”
And the Leapfrog boss believes online is key at retail too. He says: “I think this year will be an online Christmas. I think if you look at all retailers, the number one store they will have will be their online shop, by a long way. If you go back two or three years, that wouldn’t have been the case, but now it is. “And that’s perfect for us, because our consumer is very online savvy, they’re very internet savvy, they’re very digital, they have iPads, they are connected at home, they have wi- fi… That’s our consumer. So our products appeal to those people and our products sell well online.” The flipside of this change in retail is that promotional activity doesn’t work as it used to. Spalding explains: “In the past, you could decide to promote with Toys R Us in January, Argos in February, ELC in March, but within five minutes now, if you
promote with Toys R Us in January, Amazon have matched it, Argos have matched it, ELC have matched it, so there isn’t those exclusive spots any more.
“So I think going forward, people will have to review their promotional strategies, because as a consumer, there’s a site you go on to compare and you pick the best deal, you pick the best price.
sustain the growth after the initial popularity has died down?
“I’d never thought about it, maybe I should think about it being tough to follow. For me that comes down to one of the P’s, which is people and that’s where leadership comes in. To be totally honest with you, I don’t know what we can’t achieve.” Spalding has worked in around 13 different industries, including stints
NPD data toward the end of 2011 showed that the company’s sales were up 53 per
cent year-to-date and last year showed an increase of 36 per cent on 2009.
“I think maybe people haven’t caught up with that technology yet, because that’s the way parents are shopping now.” LeapPad linked into this digital world and offered a product that helped kids emulate their parents. On its best days of sales in the lead up to Christmas, LeapPad sold 9,000 units via retail in two days. But is it something of a double- edged sword? Will the firm be able to
at Pepsi, Associated Newspapers and others – something which could prove to be a competitive advantage. “I’ve only been here a couple of years. But, we’ve got something like a two per cent market share – that means there is 98 per cent we don’t have. Is a couple of hundred thousand units good? I don’t know to be honest. Could it be 500,000 units? I’ve no idea. We don’t have everything in full distribution everywhere, every week;
we don’t have the best promotions we could run. “There’s loads of stuff we can do
next year that we haven’t done this year. So I’m actually really looking forward to next year, because as I say, I think we can make this year look really average, just by fixing stuff that we haven’t got right this year. And this year, we got a lot of stuff right that we didn’t get right last year.” And the plans for next year look set to trump the LeapPad success. Spalding explains: “LeapPad we think will go on for a good few months yet, but we’re also working on a few innovations for 2012, which I can’t go into now. But you know, once the competition think they have caught up, they might be in for a surprise; that we’ve got the next version,” says Spalding.
“Clearly there is going to be some impact from the economy and what’s going on in the world. But no-one could have predicted the success we’ve had to date, and we didn’t to be fair, which is why we’ve been scrabbling around for stock. “For next year our plans are pretty robust, pretty strong.”
FEBRUARY 2012
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