‘Twilight’ and Anniversaries Top Toy Fair
The life-size cardboard cut-out of Edward stopped me in my tracks as I walked the aisles at Toy Fair in New York this week. ‘Twilight’ was one of the newer licenses dotting booths at the annual toy industry show. Mattel has cast the Twilight stars – Edward and Bella – as Barbie dolls. Mattel also unveiled the newest Barbie career dolls: News Anchor Barbie and Computer Engineer Barbie, as voted by fans and getting good buzz at the show.
Anniversaries were another dominant theme at Toy Fair: Etch a Sketch and Slinky celebrate their 50th and 65th (wow, I’m old!); Hello Kitty is 35; and Hasbro introduced a round Monopoly game board in honor of Monopoly’s 75th. The makers of Rubik’s Cube (a 360 client), which turns 30 in 2010, have rolled out a campaign to empower America’s youth to solve the cube – check out the Rubik’s Facebook page we just set up for the You Can Do the Cube campaign. You CAN do it!
Our friends at the Toy Book were offering to tweet show news for exhibitors. Simply stop by Toy Book’s booth at the Javits with your 140 characters and the editors will tweet it out. Social media made even easier. You can read all the tweets from the show at #toyfair.
Looking at the appointment schedules our teams booked up for clients, it was striking just how many more bloggers made it to the show this year. That added some welcomed immediacy and a real-parent perspective to the Toy Fair news stream. (Love to read your post if you want to leave a link here.)
And here’s one of my favorite Toy Fair images - one that caught the attention of FOX Busiiness – the New York City skyline sculpted out of Bendaroos (a 360 client):
Thanks for the post on Toy Fair, Laura. Being there for the past few days, my take is that some key themes coming out of the show were: affordability, active toys, and creative play themes. It was another exciting year!
Thanks for calling out those themes Courtney. I agree, there were definitely more creative play options. It was refreshing to see many new hands-on, creative play toys and games. Parents will no doubt appreciate them come holiday season!
Sounds like another great show this year. I am sorry to have missed it (but am thankful I was spared standing on my feet for hours on end 7 1/2 months pregnant!). It is nice to hear of so many iconic toys celebrating such huge anniversaries and that all the buzz wasn’t just about the latest and greatest. I am interested to see what the brands do to leverage such big milestones. I, of course, know Rubik’s will celebrate in style
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Thanks Laura. Good to see Barbie revitalize her career. Computer Engineer Barbie is very geeky chic and I personally love News Anchor Barbie in her pink blazer and side bangs. The Bendaroos NYC skyline is very cool too. Wish I had that skill – to make such amazing creations with flexible bending sticks! Also sounds like social media had a strong presence at the ToyFair. Cindy