Toys and gender: What’s a brand to do?

Big brand toy experiences

Barely a week goes by without a press story surfacing about gender stereotyping and the toy industry.

For every seemingly positive story about Hamley’s and other retailers ditching the distinction of “girl toy” and “boy toy” aisles and Smyth’s lauded “If I Were A Toy” Christmas ad, another counter-outrage whips up about sexist categorisation in Subway kids’ meal bags (action figures for boys, pretty wristbands for girls) or the Early Learning Centre promoting regressive play sterotypes (boys as rescuing knights, girls the rescued princesses).

In an age of alternative facts and media sensationalism it is difficult to divine actual “outrage” from manufactured versions. For every lobbying group like “Let Toys Be Toys” there is plenty of anecdotal evidence from parents who simply don’t see the issue or feel it is one to get animated about.

As a result, it is not difficult to feel sympathy for toy companies who are dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t – particularly with historical intellectual properties. When Hasbro bought out the first wave of Stars Wars toys from “The Force Awakens” movie it was hit by a #WheresRey Twitter campaign (protesting the seeming absence of a leading female character from the movie in the toy line). Given levels of hype and movie secrecy issues, not to mention toy production lead times, it’s reasonable to assume licensee toymakers may not have full access to storylines or cannot predict with absolute certainty which characters will be popular and have a life in the toy market.

The issue of gender-neutral advertising then is a very tricky one for the toy industry. How can they make a progressive case for their properties at the same time as not alienating an existing fanbase? The Lego Friends line initially outraged both progressive parents and sneery died-in-the wool Lego geeks, but it is historical fact that almost from its inception Lego has worked hard to market to parents of girls (its 1981 “This is Beautiful” ad became a recent Facebook viral sensation). Mattel continues to promote the “pink” of the Barbie line, as well as accommodate dolls with different body shapes and ethnicity.

Ultimately, the products made by toymakers will succeed or fail on the tastes and attitudes of a very diverse marketplace. There is no one “boy” or “girl” consumer type, in the same way that no parent will ever feel the same on parenting issues.

So how can toy marketers navigate these waters when trying to create a broader consumer base for traditionally gendered toy lines? Play must be the way through toy brand experiences. As a father of both a boy and a girl I have observed how distinctions fall away in shared activity – with my daughter playing Ninjago Lego and my son reaching for My Little Pony. On a larger scale, big brand experiences can bring kids of both genders together if you can add creative nuance and be flexible around brand guidelines. Cool tech brings a generation of kids raised on iPads together; welcoming staff can make product demonstrations an entertainment – there are many tips and tricks you can employ to help break down traditional gender territories.

As a kid, I flung my action man through the mud, before washing his hair in my imaginary hair salon! There are no rules set on play; it unlocks the imagination. And by encouraging children to get hands on with toys in the real world through carefully planned and targeted experiential marketing campaigns, brands can break down gendered attitudes and present a more diverse image, while also testing the preferences of their young audience first hand.

Nick Swift is senior account director at real world marketing agency Sense, which has designed and run brand experiences for a range of toy and game brands, including most recently Transformers, My Little Pony, Guitar Hero and Bop It!.

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Discover our latest guides to help brighten your brand experience strategy or amplify your retail marketing moves. Get them here at The Futures Lab.

London

5th Floor Century House
100 Oxford Street
London
W1D 1LN

New York

243 E 14th
#2 C/O SQ
New York
NY 10003

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Discover our latest guides to help brighten your brand experience strategy here at The Future Lab

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Experiential

Whether it be Festivals, Trade Shows, PR Stunts, Installations or Pop Ups to name a few, we believe brand experiences are one of the most powerful forms of marketing to impact consumer perception and attitude towards a brand. They can create real behaviour change when born out of a deep consumer insight allied to a compelling idea. And it’s these fundamentals we look to get right whatever the live, virtual or hybrid task in hand.

Sampling.

Sampling is all too often perceived as an unsophisticated, somewhat ‘blunt’ marketing tool. Over the last 16 years Sense has pioneered a set of strategic principles which underpin our unique approach to sampling and which are highly measurable from both an ROI and consumer behaviour change perspective. We will happily guide brands through the myriad of sampling channels and products available so whether it’s mass face to face sampling, in offices, digitally, at home or just a strategic framework that you are after, we can provide a blend of tactics to fulfil both brand and sales objectives.

Retail.

With many clients now focused on activating in channels more closely associated with a sale, our heavyweight retail experience closes the loop on a typical shopper journey by encompassing the moment of truth in store. Be it prize promotions, shopper toolkits, key visual creation, path-to-purchase communications, category strategy, B2B campaigns or Amazon optimisation, our goal is to create forward-thinking retail experiences that deliver demonstrable brand value. We aim to make ‘retail fail’ a thing of the past for ambitious brands looking to thrive is an ever-competitive landscape and believe our streamlined team is perfectly placed to do this.

Foresight.

Knowing what will keep a brand bright, exciting, and vital means we need to keep one step ahead of the curve. Our thought leadership hub, The Futures Lab, helps us to understand the marketing trends of tomorrow. It’s also the origin of strategies and methodologies which have created over 65 award-winning campaigns. 

Rigour.

Creativity is nothing without results. And we know that commissioning bold concepts, capable of changing minds, requires reassurance that it’s the right thing to do. 

Data, insights, and research precedes every campaign we do, and our proprietary measurement tool, EMR, gives us a decade of campaign performance metrics. Which is why we’re proud to have been recognised as industry-leading by brands like The Economist, Coca-Cola, and Molson Coors. 

Trust.

We believe brand experience is inherently more varied than other forms of marketing. No formula, no template, no cookie-cutter approach – and often no precedent. 

That’s why, Sense places trust at the heart of its business – grounded in teamwork between our people and yours. Our processes are efficient, our senior team stay involved and our partnership mentality had helped us sustain powerful client relationships, some lasting over 10 years.