NEWS & OPINION
Counter Insurgent
This month, our mystery toy retailer discusses the delights of day-to-day customers, how messy stores have a good heart and the dichotomy of hyperactive young toy lovers
Optimus Prime truck tour ‘extremely successful’, says Hasbro
Firm looking to extend the tour into 2014 to tie in with 30th Anniversary Transformers celebrations
HASBRO HAS told ToyNews that this summer’s Optimus Prime truck tour was a resounding success. Fans visiting the event
were able to play with a collection of new Transformers Prime Beast Hunters toys at an interactive Transformers station and watch the new DVD series on big screens. “The tour was extremely successful as consumer engagement was up year on year,” said Louisa Nigro, senior brand manager for Transformers at Hasbro. “This was driven by offering consumers a greater and more enriched experience. “As a franchise brand we
wanted to give fans the chance to submerse themselves into the Transformers world, with toy tables, gaming areas, animation and green screen photography. We had queues for the Transformation station at every event.”
www.toynews-online.biz The firm said that the
tour was a great way to receive direct feedback from their target audience. “The kids reactions is the
most rewarding part, they love to get involved and some even dress up as their favourite Autobot. “They wanted to play
with everything. You can see first hand how much they enjoy the brand.” With the 30th
anniversary Transformers celebrations arriving next year, Hasbro is looking into the possibility of sending Optimus Prime back on the road. A spokesperson said:
“While it is still too early to say, we are currently looking at how we extend the tour into 2014 to help celebrate our 30th anniversary, as well as the action figure line inspired by the next movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction.” Hasbro: 020 8569 1234
WE ALL have them don’t we, customers we just love? The ones who are always right (we know they’re not), their kids are always a delight (they’re little sods) and they are never any trouble (no madam, you can’t bring a Chad Valley toy back to me). We have a bloke I call Benefit Man come in most days. Come on, we all get them don’t we? We all know who they are. He comes in, sometimes with or without a crutch (depending on the weather) with the aim to make a bloody nuisance of himself. Always querying prices (he is sitting at home trawling the web and getting confused which Monster High doll is which) and moaning that the technic LEGO he bought to play while the kids are at school, is too easy. The best bit is when he asks me to match unfathomable internet prices, minus their delivery charge. I try to be polite, but at a level that leaves the staff open- mouthed and forget he is trying to double whammy me by living off my taxes
and asking for discount. Chuckie and his sister came in during the week. Readers of this column will know this little bundle of joy comes in regularly and treats the store as his personal demolition derby track. This time I caught the little scamp trying to ride a battery operated car down the stairs. The little fella was out of control, while his mum was supervising him from the comfort of the bakery/ coffee shop/ meeting place 100 yards down the road. I guessed where she was heading as she walked past the door, allowing Chuckie to come in as she continued determinedly forward. I hunted her down to ask her to collect her child. Bellowing from the moment she entered to the moment she left, the pair departed the store, leaving the Sister of Chuckie behind. I didn’t know she was still in the store (neither did the mother, I think) until I found the soft toys arranged two by two trying to open My Little Pony blind bags to look for Pinkie. I hoped her mother
would miss her in the next two hours or so. Sometimes we wish we had better behaved kids, but the fact is children get excited when they enter a toy store. And this is simply something we must encourage to keep the consumer shopping with us and not online. Our shop may not be the prettiest, but customers love seeing a store bursting with toys. Kids love activities and
getting them through the door with our activity days has been a great success. Maybe we won’t see the benefit this week, but when ithey want the next toy, perhaps customers will think of us first instead of some faceless, soulless store. I am planning a Nerf activity next, and even though we will doubtless be finding darts for weeks afterwards, I know it will go down a storm.
The Sister of Chukie’s mother did come back. It took ten minutes. But by this time she was happily playing with Duplo and (unlike Chuckie) managing not to scatter bricks within a five metre radius.
November 55
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