perfect example of the toy industry’s entrepreneurial flair.
OBSERVATIONS OF A TOY INDUSTRY SURVIVOR Jon Salisbury The return of Hasbro’s classic toy Furby has triggered some reminiscing by our columnist this month
CHRISTMAS is now just a couple of nerve wracking months away.
Do you remember when it seemed like the long awaited Olympic year would never arrive? Then, in the blink of an eye, it was all over. Olympic toy licensees had mixed fortunes, as we came to learn. Other industries were more fortunate. A school friend of mine actually toasted London 2012 with what must have been a sizeable contract, telling me that all the toilets flushed, phones rang, burgers cooked and lights worked because of what his firm buried beneath the Olympic park. Well, now it’s time for the annual bumper festive bonanza that awaits the toy industry. The total UK toy market is worth around £2.96 billion, 50 per cent of which comes in the last three months of the year, so you’re all competing for a slice of £1.48 billion. At the time of writing, we hadn’t been told which products had been chosen as 2012’s Dream Toys, but it would have been a brave person who ruled out the inclusion of an interactive creature whose native language is Furbish.
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Over 40 million Furbies, priced at $35 each, were sold between 1998 and 2000 before Emoto-tronic Furby appeared from 2005 to 2007. Furby still stands as the perfect example of the toy industry’s entrepreneurial flair, taking risks while less ambitious, more conservative businesses are far too risk averse to stick their necks out with unproven technology.
Of course, not every risk is going to generate the kind of revenue that Furby did, and the streets are littered with many failures, although even some of those set the tone for massively profitable future developments. Take Captain Power. It was in 1987 when Mattel proudly announced a character whose weapons and vehicles could be used to shoot at and affect the action on the Captain Power live action TV show. In the end, the show failed and so did the toys, but Mattel’s concept hinted at a future where consumers could control events on their TV screens. Early on, it was with basic video games, until the more recent advent of the likes of the Nintendo Wii, Xbox Kinect and Smart TV.
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This time around, Furby seems to be far more user friendly. You can even download a free app with a pantry and deli to feed your Furby and a translator to interpret its language, plus a full Furbish-to-English dictionary, to practice Furbish even when Furby is not around. Consumers had mixed feelings of the Tiger Electronics Furby last time around. The promise of an interactive pet still generated huge demand, but erratic performance dampened enthusiasm for some owners. Hasbro snapped up Tiger to get its hands on Furby at a very early stage in its development, and guaranteed the kind of distribution that made Furby the must-have toy of 1998. 14 years later, few people must be doubting
that Furby will be omnipotent over Christmas 2012.
Jon Salisbury has written about the toy business since 1985, editing magazines and running toy media events in New York and London. He can be contacted at jon@wotkidzwant.com or @JonSalisbury
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