What do you think?
Rate this book
Toyland: The High-Stakes Game of the Toy Industry
Looks at the twelve billion dollar-a-year toy industry, follows each step in the creation of a new product, and describes the people who work in the industry
- GenresGames
339 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1990
33 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 13, 2012
Though I have been in the Toy Fair building in New York City (for a Ziff-Davis Christmas Party), I’ve never been there for Toy Fair. Though I worked for a major toy company (a division of Hasbro) and observed preparations for Toy Fair, as a magazine publisher for one of their smallest divisions, I wasn’t directly involved with the planning. However, I have covered Comdex, the Consumer Electronics Show, and Electronic Entertainment Expo for various national publications, so I can tell you that everything I read about the industry in Toyland: The High-Stakes Game of the Toy Industry rings true. I also knew a couple of people mentioned by name in the book, though I knew them when they were repeating some of the mistakes in another industry that they gave alibis for in this book. Funny how that works.
The narrative of Toyland takes the reader from the existence of Toy Fair out into the industry. There is a narrative which takes the reader from the conception to the launch (and initial sales figures) of a major new product line and this rather linear story is interspersed with some meaty little historical details on each phase of the development of the product and the way things have worked throughout the history of the industry. One word of caution is necessary, the book was written looking back at the ‘80s and doesn’t reflect some of the bankruptcies and industry consolidation which has occurred since it was written. At the time the book was published, Tonka had just purchased Kenner Toys/Parker Brothers Games as part of a leveraged buyout. Today, those products are all under the Hasbro umbrella.
The book enlightens readers about the #1 biggest lie told at Toy Fair, the annual exposition held early in the calendar year and affects the retail strength of virtually all products in the last quarter of the year. That lie is about the size of the advertising budget (p. 13). The strength of promotional toys and games, a horrendously cyclical rather than secular marketplace, is tied in almost a 1:1 correspondence with the advertising budget. Advertising won’t guarantee a success, but not having strong advertising will almost guarantee a failure. Indeed, with an 80% failure rate with new products (p. 27), it’s no wonder that companies want all of the edge they can find.
Until I read Toyland, I hadn’t realized that the founders of Mattel had bet the entire future of the company on the success of advertising on the Mickey Mouse Club (p. 53). Although the budget for a full year was only half of a million dollars, it was all they could afford and it paid off royally. I was also amused at all of the negative reviews toward Barbie when she made her debut at Toy Fair in 1959 (p. 60). Nor did I realize that the Barbie look was based on a lewd German cartoon of the era (pp. 60-61).
The book is full of the stories of large companies passing on games or toys which became a big hit. I knew that Parker Brothers originally passed on Monopoly (p. 123) until Wanamaker’s Department Store in Philadelphia ordered all the designer could make, but didn’t know that Milton Bradley had refused to publish Trivial Pursuit because only those below twelve years of age played games (p. 125). Indeed, there was even one delightful bit of wisdom in the story about Dave Traeger trying to market a straw that caused a merry-go-round to twirl when a child would drink through it. Called the “Merry-Go-Sip,” buyers uniformly refused to stock it by claiming that parents didn’t want kids to play with their food or drink. Traeger said that if the prevailing viewpoint was “…unanimous, they must be wrong.” (p. 238) And the buyers were wrong. A company marketed the product independently and parents loved it because it encouraged kids to eat and drink.
I loved the licensing story about the toy company who thought a “Baby Jesus” doll was a can’t miss item, but toy store owners were reluctant to stock the doll because they didn’t want to ever be in the position of “marking down” the Baby Jesus (p. 145). There was also a terrific story about a Hasbro product called “Flubber” that was tied to a Disney license in the ‘60s. It turned out that the product gave 5% of the population a rash, so the company recalled it. They took it to a Providence landfill, but it wouldn’t burn cleanly and they had to take it back. They received Coast Guard permission to bury it at sea and it kept rising up so that the company had to pay to clean it up. Finally, they buried it on the Hasbro property where, at least at the end of the ‘80s, it was continuing to rise and push up the corner of one of the buildings (pp. 114-115). Toyland also does a great job of explaining why regulation goes astray (p. 211) and how toy knock-offs and counterfeits get produced so quickly after a hit toy comes out (pp. 242-3). Hint: Many Asian production lines have competitor’s products on parallel assembly lines. When competitors come to inspect their products in production, they see what their competitors are doing.
Of course, I also liked the confirmation bias provided to me with regard to color and consumer choice. As a publisher, I urged my editors and art directors to avoid green covers because they tend to sell worse than other colors. Here, in Toyland, I read that among test groups and experienced marketers, “…green is generally considered a loser.” (p. 132) In addition to learning a lot, it’s always fun to see your prejudices affirmed.
The narrative of Toyland takes the reader from the existence of Toy Fair out into the industry. There is a narrative which takes the reader from the conception to the launch (and initial sales figures) of a major new product line and this rather linear story is interspersed with some meaty little historical details on each phase of the development of the product and the way things have worked throughout the history of the industry. One word of caution is necessary, the book was written looking back at the ‘80s and doesn’t reflect some of the bankruptcies and industry consolidation which has occurred since it was written. At the time the book was published, Tonka had just purchased Kenner Toys/Parker Brothers Games as part of a leveraged buyout. Today, those products are all under the Hasbro umbrella.
The book enlightens readers about the #1 biggest lie told at Toy Fair, the annual exposition held early in the calendar year and affects the retail strength of virtually all products in the last quarter of the year. That lie is about the size of the advertising budget (p. 13). The strength of promotional toys and games, a horrendously cyclical rather than secular marketplace, is tied in almost a 1:1 correspondence with the advertising budget. Advertising won’t guarantee a success, but not having strong advertising will almost guarantee a failure. Indeed, with an 80% failure rate with new products (p. 27), it’s no wonder that companies want all of the edge they can find.
Until I read Toyland, I hadn’t realized that the founders of Mattel had bet the entire future of the company on the success of advertising on the Mickey Mouse Club (p. 53). Although the budget for a full year was only half of a million dollars, it was all they could afford and it paid off royally. I was also amused at all of the negative reviews toward Barbie when she made her debut at Toy Fair in 1959 (p. 60). Nor did I realize that the Barbie look was based on a lewd German cartoon of the era (pp. 60-61).
The book is full of the stories of large companies passing on games or toys which became a big hit. I knew that Parker Brothers originally passed on Monopoly (p. 123) until Wanamaker’s Department Store in Philadelphia ordered all the designer could make, but didn’t know that Milton Bradley had refused to publish Trivial Pursuit because only those below twelve years of age played games (p. 125). Indeed, there was even one delightful bit of wisdom in the story about Dave Traeger trying to market a straw that caused a merry-go-round to twirl when a child would drink through it. Called the “Merry-Go-Sip,” buyers uniformly refused to stock it by claiming that parents didn’t want kids to play with their food or drink. Traeger said that if the prevailing viewpoint was “…unanimous, they must be wrong.” (p. 238) And the buyers were wrong. A company marketed the product independently and parents loved it because it encouraged kids to eat and drink.
I loved the licensing story about the toy company who thought a “Baby Jesus” doll was a can’t miss item, but toy store owners were reluctant to stock the doll because they didn’t want to ever be in the position of “marking down” the Baby Jesus (p. 145). There was also a terrific story about a Hasbro product called “Flubber” that was tied to a Disney license in the ‘60s. It turned out that the product gave 5% of the population a rash, so the company recalled it. They took it to a Providence landfill, but it wouldn’t burn cleanly and they had to take it back. They received Coast Guard permission to bury it at sea and it kept rising up so that the company had to pay to clean it up. Finally, they buried it on the Hasbro property where, at least at the end of the ‘80s, it was continuing to rise and push up the corner of one of the buildings (pp. 114-115). Toyland also does a great job of explaining why regulation goes astray (p. 211) and how toy knock-offs and counterfeits get produced so quickly after a hit toy comes out (pp. 242-3). Hint: Many Asian production lines have competitor’s products on parallel assembly lines. When competitors come to inspect their products in production, they see what their competitors are doing.
Of course, I also liked the confirmation bias provided to me with regard to color and consumer choice. As a publisher, I urged my editors and art directors to avoid green covers because they tend to sell worse than other colors. Here, in Toyland, I read that among test groups and experienced marketers, “…green is generally considered a loser.” (p. 132) In addition to learning a lot, it’s always fun to see your prejudices affirmed.
May 23, 2023
I love bernie loomis
July 6, 2022
Pretty interesting book with a lot of good anecdotal stories, which is exactly what I read this for. I especially enjoyed the in-depth focus on the creation of Dino-Riders. Some of the wording and “quotes” were a little oddly worded, and some information was flat out incorrect (I especially remember an incorrect description of Donkey Kong which I thought was pretty funny). That’s not too much of a big deal, however. The book delivers on its premise
January 17, 2009
Loved this. Read it for research, reread it for pleasure. It may be dated, but it's still good stuff.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews