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Toy Trust gives to Syria’s refugee children
The Toy Trust has joined Christian Aid with a donation of £10,000 to support the refugee children displaced by the civil war in Syria. Over three million people have fled their homes in Syria and desperately need food, shelter and medical supplies. Foye Pascoe, Toy Trust chair, said: “The Toy Trust team felt there was a compelling case to support Syria’s displaced children as their desperate plight has clearly been highlighted by recent media reporting. We donated to support children in the recent disasters in Haiti and Japan, and clearly Syria now warrants our help. If you feel you can add to our donation then please send a cheque payable to the Toy Trust at the BTHA and we will ensure the money gets to Christian Aid without delay.” The Toy Trust aims to raise £250,000 per annum to help children’s
charities both at home and abroad each year. Over £3.5m has been raised to date and disbursed to over 500 good causes in the UK and abroad.
TLC partners with Asda on Little Tikes DTR
Asda has announced a direct-to- retail agreement with Little Tikes. The partnership, brokered by TLC, extends over many years and will see Asda replacing a large part of its private label toy, nursery, apparel and gift business with Little Tikes branded products as part of a ‘good, better, best’ re-brand. The first Little Tikes product line
in Asda stores will focus on nursery and pre-school toys ranging from 0-6 years. The initial collection consists of 86 products with plans to introduce a further 25 products in the next few months and categories include impulse toys, mobiles, rattles, wooden toys, plush, lights and sounds learning, electronic toys, vehicles, musical instruments, role-play, bath toys, puzzles, construction and play-sets. The official launch date in stores, and online at Asda Direct, was April 13th 2013. Asda’s head of toys Steph Strike said: “We are delighted to be launching
our very own exclusive range of Little Tikes toys at Asda. We’ve listened to our customers and in response we have created a broad range of desirable yet affordable toys that can be picked up as part of the weekly shop to keep children entertained whilst helping them to develop key skills along the way.”
Little Tikes UK’s managing director Andrew Laughton added: “This is
a strategic relationship that truly benefits both parties. We are looking forward to building our business in this pre-school retail channel. Together we will be offering some fantastic options for playtime that will encourage imaginative role-play, as well as offering core pre-school developmental skills – whilst all the time ensuring children and parents have fun.”
from the editor Tom Roberts @tomtoyworld
Hello and welcome to the May issue of Toy World magazine. It’s been a long month, punctuated by the Easter break,
which really does throw its own unique spanner in the works. While it’s lovely to have a long weekend with days off either side, it does leave you to cram ten days worth of work into eight. It doesn’t sound like much, but try putting together an issue like this month’s together in two
weeks...and with a couple of days out for illness (I caught whatever was going around). I need another long
weekend...and my wife says I need to stop moaning about these things. The main category feature I looked at this month was Girls Collectables and Dolls.
The Girls category seems to be experiencing something of a surge of late with statistics showing sectors such as Fashion Themed Dolls and Playset Themes Figurines charting huge increases. Fashion Themed Dolls showed an increase of 20% from 2011 to 2012, with Playset Themed Figurines experiencing an 11% increase across the same period. Add to this the growing popularity of construction collectables that specifically target girls, Mega Bloks Barbie and Lego Friends to name a few, and it’s easy to see that this category will continue to strengthen its industry driving status. I don’t want to give too much away here; you’ll just have to read the full article later on the issue.
What to see? This month’s issue is packed, as ever, with all the info you’ll need on the UK toy trade this month. However, I’d like to highlight a few of the major articles you should make a point of reading: ‘Touching Base’, our new supplier-based opinion feature continues this month with a look at the upcoming Toymaster Show; new feature ‘Have You Considered...’, a retailer-focused series that aims to shed light on potential new revenue streams, continues with a look at posters and wall stickers; and finally, our ‘news-in- depth’ article this month is written by our very own Kayleigh Conway and takes a look at the Mummy Blogger phenomena. This month’s retailer interview is with Morrisons’ Girls Toys buyer Cara Dennison.
Cara spoke to me about her role, the categories she oversees, and what toys mean to Morrisons both now and for the future. It’s always interesting to hear from the major grocers about their non-food offerings, and with Morrisons only having had toys in- store for the past few years it’s especially interesting to hear how it’s going. Turn to page 22 to find out more. You’ll see in the latter half of this issue a massive preview of the upcoming Toymaster
May show. Always a valuable addition to the toy industry calendar, the show offers a nice mid-year opportunity to meet up with the trade and retailers. I joined Toy World on the 14th May 2012, a week or so before the Toymaster show that year. It was my first toy industry show, and a brilliant introduction to my new environment. Round two is just weeks away, so turn to page 75 to read our preview. We also had some help putting together this issue from Domonique De Friez, a
university student at Anglia Ruskin University in Harlow, who joined us for a few days after the Easter holiday. Domonique helped us with the product features and edited some of this month’s news stories, and as we don’t name-check our news stories, I wanted to mention how greatly appreciated her help was; she will make an excellent addition to an editorial team when she finishes her course in 2014. Thanks, Domonique. As ever, if you have any news, views or opinions you would like to share with the Toy
World team, you can get in touch with me by phone on 01442 840 305, or by email at
tom@toyworldmag.co.uk. Thanks for reading this month’s column, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the issue.
@toyworldmag
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