This article was originally published in the 2013 Toy Fair Times, and is republished on PlayHappens with permission from the author. Can’t wait until Toy Fair opens on February 10th to discover the hottest new toys, games and youth entertainment products of the year? Before you dive into the thousands of new toys on display, TIA trend specialist Adrienne Appell offers some sneak peeks at the … [Read more...]
How Are You Impacting the World of Play?
12/18/2012 by 8 Comments
Have you ever thought about the kind of impact you have on the world? How your mere existence is bound to have an effect on someone else, hopefully for the better of course but you never know. Have you given yourself the time to imagine your own “It’s a Wonderful Life” moment where you consider what the world would be like without you? Or better yet, allow yourself to really enjoy the notion … [Read more...]
Your Ad Campaign: A Look to the Future or a Thing of the Past?
09/23/2012 by Leave a Comment
When it comes to trends, it’s not always the future that lights the way. Sometimes it’s the past. As the old adage goes, “Everything old is new again” and right now the folks at Campbell’s are revisiting the past in order to attract customers to the future. How many of you are football fans? Or fans of soup? I imagine many of you are, and if so you might remember the ‘Mama’s … [Read more...]
Getting a Look at Trends with Google Insights
01/05/2012 by 6 Comments
In the last two articles, we’ve been talking about keyword research and how it can provide valuable data into the search patterns of our potential customers. I hope the data you’ve since uncovered has blown your mind! But what if we could take search data one step further to reveal trends? Wouldn’t it be great if we could spot a new breakthrough niche, or product? Or how about being prepared … [Read more...]
Digging Into Keyword Research
01/04/2012 by 3 Comments
In the last article, Learn To Think Like Your Customer, we scratched the surface of keyword research with a quick look at the Google AdWords Keyword Tool (http://bit.ly/b8cz5g). If you haven’t had a chance to play around with it, please do--it’s a tool I can no longer live without and it’s free. In this post, I’d like to take a step back and take a quick bird’s eye view of why keyword … [Read more...]
Keyword Research: Learn To Think Like Your Customer
01/03/2012 by 3 Comments
This post was originally published for the 2012 Toy Fair Times. As experts in our industry, we tend to create a way of communicating about our products that assumes everyone is also an expert. We don’t do this on purpose, of course, but we do tend to loose sight of the language consumers use to find, research and (hopefully) buy our products. Successful marketers need to think like a … [Read more...]
Toy Fair 2011 Trends: Where Are They Now?
09/07/2011 by Leave a Comment
Every Tuesday morning I pow wow with our Senior PR Manager (and my office BFF) Adrienne, who manages social media for the association. A few weeks ago I asked her about the trends identified at Toy Fair 2011 this past February and if they were still holding strong today. Her answer? YES! At last year’s show, TIA predicted that four trends would persist throughout the year: Performance … [Read more...]
Data Data Data
05/05/2011 by 1 Comment
Back in the conference room for Data… Data… Data: The NPD Group had the numbers play professionals want to hear! Anita Frazier, NPD’s industry analyst specializing in toys and video games, reported that toys captured the third highest dollar share (14%) of the purchases for kids ages 0-14 among nearly 20 consumer categories. As expected, toys hit their peak at the holidays. (For those who … [Read more...]
The Land of Surveys Part II
04/01/2011 by 1 Comment
As promised, here is what the exhibitors thought of Toy Fair 2011! In case you missed it from yesterday’s post, some quick information before I begin: TIA sent surveys to five specific audiences: domestic buyers, international buyers, domestic exhibitors, international exhibitors and first time exhibitors. With the exception of the domestic exhibitors all of the remaining audiences yielded a … [Read more...]
