60 FEATURE LEAPFROG Leaps and bounds
A sell-out product with LeapPad certainly helped to boost sales at the end of 2011, but Leapfrog has shown consistent growth since Chris Spalding took the reins. Katie Roberts finds out his formula for success…
TO GIVE an idea of how well Leapfrog is doing at the moment, Chris Spalding, MD, EMEA, was recently in a preview with a customer, where there was ‘a good 20-minute discussion on why we’d gone from being 90 per cent up at the end of last month to being 85 per cent up at the end of this month.’ NPD data towards 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. Spalding explains: “There isn’t really a customer, certainly in the top five or six, that we aren’t significantly up with year-over-year. “And the good thing about that for me is that was before LeapPad. So since LeapPad, yes, it’s got better, but before LeapPad, we were up 40 or 45 per cent anyway.” The growth isn’t just UK-based, as Spalding outlines: “If that was a fluke, that’s one thing, but if you look at France, it’s up even more than the UK; Australia’s up 45 per cent, etc. “So we are actually doing quite well across the board internationally, which just makes me think thankfully it’s not just a fluke here in the UK for a couple of years.”
So how has Spalding managed to grow the business in the three years he has been there? “I think it’s down to three things,”
he explains. “It’s the three P’s, which is people, process and product. We’ve got a good bunch of people now, the team’s very good and that helps tremendously. I think we’ve got some good processes in place in the way we work with our customers and I think we’ve got some good products. “And when you put those three things together, you get 50 per cent growth.”
The overall industry figures aren’t quite so promising, though, with NPD figures showing sales have been largely flat year-on-year. “The feedback we are getting from customers is not particularly positive
FEBRUARY 2012
Chris Spalding has worked in around 13 different industries and is still fairly new to toys, but Leapfrog EMEA sales have been booming
as they are doing previews with other manufacturers. Everyone, I think, is battening down the hatches a bit. But we’re very bullish, we’re still looking at driving significant growth
launches in 2012, Leapfrog is continuing to expand its offering. “I think if companies are launching new products in 2012, they tend to be launching them in the back half,”
Everyone, I think, is battening down the hatches a bit. But we’re very
bullish, we’re still looking at driving significant growth in 2012. Chris Spalding, MD, EMEA, Leapfrog
in 2012, both with new products, with existing products and with some very innovative new ways that we’ll be working with the industry.” And a bullish confidence is something that comes across quite clearly when you meet the boss of Leapfrog. While many firms are cutting back on new product
Spalding tells ToyNews. “We’re doing it throughout the year. This year [2011] we launched ten or 12 new toys and next year, we’ll have ten or 12 new toys. “This year we launched LeapPad
and next year, we’ll launch significant new mobile learning products, which I can’t go into yet.”
“Our objective for 2012 is to make 2011 look average.”
Investment will also be made into
marketing, both through traditional and modern media. “For the first time next year, we’ll be TV advertising toys – we’ve never done that before – as well as mobile learning and reading. So we are really trying to push the market next year.” Leapfrog is also investing in online
marketing and employs a digital manager to manage the website, the retailer websites, Facebook, Twitter, etc and carry out the integrated plan in place for the firm.
Spalding sees this aspect as key to Leapfrog’s success. “I think that’s an area we capitalise on quite well, we’ve got our own database of 550,000 connected customers who have bought our products, so we can communicate directly with them.
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