A new, regular feature looking at potential incremental revenue streams for toy retailers
1D: Taking over the world
One Direction is one of the biggest bands on the planet with highly successful albums, an upcoming 3D movie and scores of fans. As you’d expect, the retail market is fi lling up with branded goods, but why should toy retailers take note? Tom Roberts asks “have you considered One Direction-branded products”.
T
he toy trade has often fl irted with manufacturing and supplying products based on hit bands, with varying degrees of success. Fundamentally, it comes down to defi ning where the toy trade begins
and ends, but perhaps some toy retailers may not be aware of just how big a sales opportunity they can offer. If you’ve never heard of the band One Direction, then where have you been hiding? One Direction has become a phenomenally successful band across the globe in just three years; a remarkable achievement by anyone’s standard. After fi nishing third in 2010’s X Factor competition, the band was immediately signed by Simon Cowell, their mentor, to the Syco Records label for £2m. The X-Factor live tour boosted their profi le even further, and their fi rst album, ‘Up All Night’, followed shortly after. The band signed to an American record label, Columbia Records, and their single ‘What makes you beautiful’ sold over 4m copies in the US. The second album, ‘Take Me Home’, fared just as impressively as their fi rst album, and with a 3D movie launching in August and a third album on the way, it looks like the band is going to remain popular for some while yet (always a key consideration when it comes to selection decisions on music-related merchandise). In their three-year existence, the band has spawned a legion of devoted followers who call themselves “directioners”. Directioners are as passionate in their love of all things One Direction as Justin Bieber’s own fans, “Beliebers”, are about him. A quick trip to Google will reveal vast numbers of fan pages on Tumblr, and there’s often at least one trending topic on Twitter about One Direction. The band have over 68m followers on Twitter, which should give some indication as to just how many fans there must be out there. And this is what makes products featuring this band so appealing to retailers: One Direction enthralls the tween demographic, and the band knows how to retain its fans with good tunes and high-profi le exposure of its members. Gabbi Langdorf, of Global Merchandising Services, the company responsible for the One Direction licensing programme, said: “The music sector within
26 Toyworld
licensing has traditionally been more of a speciality sector, with a quick turnaround refl ecting the trends and life spans of some bands. More recently, bands and artists with a long and established history have made huge in-roads into the licensed sector; the Rolling Stones and the Beatles to name but a couple. The last music act to make an impact in mass retail was probably the Spice Girls.” Gabbi explained that One Direction has taken this to a whole new level, and added that the global success of the band, its records and ticket sales have made One Direction an extremely viable merchandise proposition for retailers. She said: “The boys are no longer seen as just a music act, they are seen as a brand, and, as such, retailers can benefi t from supporting the brand build at retail.” With tours being announced around 12 months
in advance, concerns any licensees and retailers have regarding the band’s longevity can be quickly alleviated. Gabbi commented: “While we still work within the usual confi nements of retail range planning and season, we have noticed that licensees are sending through designs and products for approval much quicker than we’ve experienced on other properties, as retailers have requested to have product available as soon as possible. Great news for all concerned.” It’s no secret that toy retailers are always on the lookout for new and exciting products to stock, and they know that getting behind crazes, if caught at the right moment, can pay dividends. But toy crazes rarely have such a huge fan base already in place, One Direction products do; it’s just a case of deciding how to access this huge potential consumer pool. Gabbi commented that “sales of 1D licensed product have been great all year round, almost regardless of the band’s activity. That said, we do expect the increased press exposure around the movie, the album release in November, and the 2014 tour, to result in a signifi cant uplift in sales.” Over the next few pages you’ll see a pick of some of
the large amount of products adorned with the band’s faces and logo. You’ll see that suppliers have taken the time to put together some excellent ranges, and some very attractive point-of-sale equipment to aid in effective and impacting merchandising. A good-looking point-of-sale display up by the till, or a poster bin near the entrance, could encourage
customers to make impulse purchases of band-related items. Couple these with the high level of popularity that One Direction is enjoying right now, it makes stocking band-related items a proposition very much worth considering.
The industry’s fav To fi nish up this article I thought it would be fun to fi nd out what the industry thought was the best One Direction song so far. At the top of the list, by quite a way, is ‘What
makes you beautiful’; a thoroughly deserving winner. It was the band’s fi rst number one single, and it’s clear that the song’s message is still resonating with listeners. Caroline Saul of Fizz Creations voted for this song, but took an interesting path while choosing her favourite, explaining that at fi rst she couldn’t remember the song’s title, so she picked ‘What makes you beautiful’ after double-checking online. ‘Little things’ was the next closest contender for the top spot, with Nick Morley of Pyramid Posters marking the song as his favourite. He said that “as a company, we really liked their early stuff, which was very underground and edgy. Oh, wait, maybe I’ve got the wrong band there.” I think Nick does have the right band, because the video for ‘Little things’ is an edgy black and white study of the band recording the single, which clearly demonstrates the gruelling nature of the recording process. There was also a lot of love for the band’s ‘One way or another/Teenage kicks’ mash up, which hit the airwaves as Comic Relief’s 2013 charity single, selling 292,000 copies in the UK as of March 2013. Phil Ratcliffe of MV Sports was also among those who put the 70s medley forward as his favourite for the understandable reason that the songs “are more my era, and both songs are on the set list of my own band”. (When’s the next gig, Phil? -Ed.) ‘Live while we’re young’ also received votes from
Ravensburger and Danilo, as well as several others, but not enough to knock the winning track off the top spot.
W
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