THE BIG INTERVIEW TOMY 25
DEVELOPMENT: THE
The Clip Clop Princess and Clip Clop Knight are new additions in the Play to Learn range for 2012...
can channel manage more effectively. For the last three months, the sales team really have been working all the major customers; we’re getting our listings in now for autumn/winter and, touchwood, they’re all really strong. “What the trade is looking for now is us to deliver good products, at a good margin, that sell well and are delivered on time.”
PRE-SCHOOL TO PRE-COOL Gray admits it was fortunate that the portfolios of Tomy and RC2 were extremely complementary, and she believes the company now has a comprehensive offer right from birth to school age – completing the ‘Tomy journey’. “Tomy was constantly looking for that infant, real baby toy gap. We want to take consumers on a journey, we want them to buy into our products for their baby and then stay with us. So when we got Lamaze I was delighted,” she says. “Our real heartland was infant pre- school, then growing into the boys area. But we had a ‘pre-cool’ gap of four to five year olds; now, from RC2, we’ve got the likes of Chuggington and the licensed portfolio. So the gaps have been filled and we have a total portfolio now. Plus we actually have a company name that is a brand and has some meaning for consumers. As a marketer, this gives us a really good foundation.”
From a marketing point of view, Gray and her team are now looking to leverage the power of the Tomy brand. There are new TV creatives which reinforce the brand identity – including the addition of a new ‘sonic signature’ – while there will also be greater emphasis on cross sell and cross promotional opportunities between its categories: from nursery to infant (monitors to Lamaze), infant to pre-school (Lamaze to Play to Learn) and pre-school to pre-cool (Chuggington to Tomika). Tomy has also recognised that when it comes to marketing to consumers there is now a huge array of tools available, and it’s a question of using the right ones for the right audience. “There’s a danger sometimes if you spread yourself too thin, you don’t do anything very well,” Gray explains. “It’s really important that the guys in my team are all really understanding how their target end-user is consuming the media.” Traditional media, such as press and
TV, continue to play an important role, along with broadcast sponsorship, but social media will also become a bigger focus.
Experiential marketing – such as the Making K’Nexions Challenges which are taking place across the country – will continue to help kids get hands on with the products, while Tomy will also look at striking more partnerships with brands which are targeting the
same audience, but in a different industry. To this end, it has recently teamed up with Huggies and is currently in the process of linking up with a national day nursery chain. Gray continues: “It’s exciting times to be working at Tomy and in marketing because we’ve got some great products, and we’ve also got some great methods to get our message out there.”
Speaking of products, while for 2012 a major focus has been on licensed properties Raa Raa the Noisy Lion and Winnie the Pooh, Gray says that 2013 will see Tomy look to grow its proprietary brands, such as Play to Learn, Aquafun and Aquadoodle, which are all well-established evergreen brands. “I think next year will see the biggest number of Play to Learn lines launched in one single year,” she comments. “Historically we would launch two or three items, but we’re looking closer to ten.”
In addition, some big news in the boys space is due, while Tomy’s new global approach has meant that licensors are coming knocking: “Part of our strategy is looking for more big global licensing deals, so that’s on the horizon, too.”
The plans are still ambitious, and there’s no doubt that Tomy has a hunger for success, but with strong listings and a solid structure now in place, they certainly look achievable.
GLOBAL APPROACH Tomy has global development centres in Hong Kong, Japan, Europe and the US, something which head of product development and product integrity Pete Kellond (above) believes is pretty unique. “I’m trying to think of another company which has that reach of actual proper development from each of those territories, but I can’t,” he says. “It benefits us in a number of ways. From a cultural position, people are finding toys or inventing play patterns that you wouldn’t necessarily have seen in the West but which you do see in Japan, for example. Having a local development centre enables us to look at that line of products, take the core line and then build onto that things which would appeal to other territories. “The benefits extend to the ideas and concepts, and these are generated and shared across all of our development centres. We all work together and work towards, I suppose, a cloud-based solution where ideas are filtered though. Everyone is then free to pick from those. Licensors can also benefit from our global development centres – they can launch on a global level and have development on a global level, but they can also have a global product but with local nuances added. We can tailor every region specifically to the requirements of the licensor.” Both Gray and Kellond believe this is why the likes of Disney and Chapman are enjoying working with Tomy. And, as Gray points out, it also gives other licensors a reason to come and knock on Tomy’s door, “because they’re going to see something different”. While Kellond’s immediate team is just six, globally he can tap into just short of a thousand people. “It’s got to be close to that, when you think of all the engineers and all the resource that goes into creating a toy,” he says. “The best way to describe it, is
you’re the director of a film – you have a vision in your head of what you want do, but a director can’t make the movie by himself, he needs everyone.”
JUNE 2012
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92