The North American International Toy Fair: A Toy Marketer's Favourite Weekend
Toy Fair is back this year on Family Day weekend with over a 1,000 toy manufacturers and distributors showcasing more than 150,000 toy and entertainment products. Kingstar Media has been a player in the toy marketing playground for over 11 years and we look forward to this fun, innovation-packed weekend every year.
The fair is always a great event for advertisers to connect with old and new clients and check out their annual product lineup. It also provides insight into the yearly trends for children's toys, which gets us at Kingstar Media to think about marketing and buying trends for toy products. Last year's Toy Fair was big on collectibles, active toys that motivate kids to move around, virtual reality and tech savvy toys, movie-based toys and more.
(2017 North American International Toy Fair, New York City)
Toy marketing is especially unique and somewhat challenging because of the dynamic toy industry where toys have a relatively short life cycle before another toy hits the shelves and steals the show. This is congruent with children's playing habits that are always changing due to reasons like ageing and boredom. It is also challenging due to the very different targeting demos at hand; your essential target is the children themselves, but you must not forget those with the ultimate buying power-the parents. Therefore, ads must appeal to both a child and an adult, which sounds difficult but it is ultimately easy to execute through simple, smart creatives and a strategic media buy.
The most popular timings of the year for toy marketing include Easter and the holiday season. Since Easter is coming up, March is usually a prime month for toy manufacturers to get their product on TV. Coupled with a digital buy on a channel's digital assets, toy marketing uses a reach and frequency mode of ad delivery that is focused on impressions. For a more in-depth look into our rules for toy marketing, read our "More Than Fun and Games: A Lesson in Toy Marketing" post!
At Kingstar Media we offer competitive media rates for all our toy marketing buys and have successfully worked with toy manufacturers of different genres over the years. Our experience includes advertising robotic toys, remote controlled toys, collectables, outdoor toys and more. Catch us at the 2018 North American Toy Fair this weekend scouting the newest and most innovative toys!
Got any questions about toy marketing? Contact us!