State of the Industry Eva Lorenz, Category Leader, Amazon Toys & Games
Eric Nyman, SVP, Global Brand Strategy and Marketing, Hasbro
How are you engaging consumers to drive sales? We are constantly observing and listening to customers so that we can continue to improve their shopping experience. One major trend we have seen lately is the growth of mobile shopping. Nearly 60 percent of Amazon.com customers shopped using a mobile device during the 2014 holiday season. On Cyber Monday alone, Amazon customers worldwide ordered more than 18 toys per second from a mobile device. As more and more customers browse the latest toys and games on their smartphones and tablets, we are enhancing the discovery and research experience with new editorial content from in-house product experts and toy enthusiasts. These are Amazon employees who live and breathe toys and games every single day—they are in regular contact with manufacturers to hear about the latest innovations, and are always testing new products and keeping up with industry trends. Our goal is to leverage their passion for toys and games to help customers discover something new, even while they are on-the-go. Examples of new editorial content include our Best Toys of the Month feature and personal anecdotes in the 2014 Holiday Toy List.
How do you utilize consumer feedback in product development? Hasbro puts our consumers at the center of everything we do and we’ve seen a tremendous amount of change in the way kids and families play today. Therefore, we conduct extensive research and are in constant conversation with our consumers to better understand their wants and needs and make sure we are delivering the world’s best play experiences. Over the last several years, Hasbro’s marketing team, in conjunction with our consumer insights team, have talked to tens of thousands of kids of all ages through research and in our three Fun Labs around the world. One example that highlights how we’ve utilized consumer feedback in product development is the Marvel Super Hero Masher line. We heard from consumer research that kids wanted more opportunities to customize and personalize their play experiences. Kids not only wanted to pick their favorite superheroes, but also customize them to make them unique by mixing and matching their superhero powers. One day they wanted Spider-Man’s web slinging abilities, but Hulk’s fist smashing hands; the next day they wanted Thor’s gauntlet and Iron Man’s mask. This feedback helped us to better understand there was a need to reinvent and evolve action figures as we know them.
What categories were driving sales in 2014? There were a number of pretty incredible innovations introduced in 2014—everything from wearable technology products, like the LeapFrog LeapBand and VTech Kidizoom Smartwatch, to robotic toys such as [Spin Master’s] Zoomer Dino and Chatsters Gabby Interactive Doll. We also started to see interest from customers in personalized 3-D printed toys, such as the Create Your Own 3D Printed Mixee Me and Create Your Own 3D Printed Bobble Head with Mixee Bobbler. In addition, the Maker Movement continued to gain traction in the industry with MaKey MaKey items, new littleBits products, and Modular Robotics kits. Newly launched active play toys, such as the Nerf Combat Creatures TerraDrone, BOOMco Rapid Madness Blaster, and Zing FireTek Rocket, also generated a lot of excitement.
54 • THE TOY BOOK
What measures have you taken to keep pace with consumer technology expectations? We continue to leverage consumer insights to ensure we are creating the most innovative experiences with our brands. Our marketing, design, and development teams are constantly researching and looking at the latest trends to uncover new technology to bring into our products. We listen closely to kids and consumers through testing to find the right way to integrate technology into our products and ensure the experience is as fun and “friction free” as possible.
FEBRUARY 2015