State of the Industry John Alteio Director of Toys & Games, Amazon
Geoff Walker EVP, Fisher-Price Global Brands
Which product categories drove sales during holiday 2013? Overall, toys and electronics are always among our best sellers throughout the holiday season. There were also several strong toy trends during the holidays, including hot licenses such as Sofia the First, Doc McStuffins, Despicable Me, and Monster High dolls. Customers were also interested in classic toys from Melissa & Doug, crafting toys from American Girl Crafts, and engineering toys from littleBits and GoldieBlox.
How do you utilize consumer feedback in product development? Research has always been at the heart of product development at Mattel. We listen to parents and kids every day of the year, all over the world, and use their input to make important business decisions. On our Fisher-Price campus alone, about 3,500 children and 1,500 parents annually participate in on-site testing, Mom panels, and in-home testing. We also utilize data from our customer service center based in East Aurora to help make better product and packaging decisions. Our customer service center is staffed with almost 150 year-round and seasonal agents who are on the front lines with our customers every day. We utilize the data this team collects to help us better understand the challenges consumers are facing with our products and packaging. This feedback is shared with the design teams, allowing us to continue to improve the consumer experience upon future iterations of our products.
Does packaging design have an effect on online product sales? What would you like to see manufacturers do differently? We want to deliver the best out-of-box experience for customers. Through our packaging feedback program, customers can tell us their packaging frustrations. We listen and then work hard to make improvements. We launched the Frustration-Free Packaging program in 2008 with four manufacturers—including Fisher-Price and Mattel—and now have more than 2,000 globally. In part, the momentum for Frustration-Free Packaging is in direct response to us channeling the customer voice back to the manufacturer. Companies that have been participating in the Frustration-Free Packaging program are expanding their offering and new companies are getting on board based on the customer feedback and other benefits of FrustrationFree Packaging. Frustration-Free Packaging is easy to open and comes without excess packaging materials, such as hard plastic clamshell casings, plastic bindings, and wire twist ties. It’s designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or a knife and will protect a product just as well as traditional packaging. Products with Frustration-Free Packaging are fully recyclable and can frequently be shipped without an additional shipping box.
50 • THE TOY BOOK
Are you looking beyond traditional TV and movie properties for licensing opportunities? Selecting new licensed properties has always been about identifying the right opportunities that lend to great toy play. We certainly do look beyond traditional TV to interesting content that resonates with our core consumer, whether that be on TV, Netflix, the App Store, or even looking within our own portfolio to further build out franchises. This year we were particularly excited by the performance of Octonauts and are thrilled to be working with Nickelodeon on the new launch of Dora and Friends. Our goal from a licensing standpoint is to keep the pipeline full of interesting and innovative properties that are resonating with kids today.
FEBRUARY 2014