Feature
Action Figures & Collectibles
Figures of
fun
McFarlane (from Bandai) – The Flash, The Joker, Azreal in Batman Armor
Just like the Dolls category, the Action Figures & Collectibles market is also being underpinned by content, with video gaming, anime and even NFTs pushing characters to the fore, as Sam Giltrow discovers.
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Get off your Xbox’ is what many parents (myself included) can be heard yelling up and down the country, day in day out, but it’s fair to say that these very games are leading to a new way of play and reshaping the Action Figures & Collectibles sector. “Boys aren’t so reliant upon the TV show or the blockbuster movie as they once were in finding things that they like, hence why anime and video game properties have become so popular,” explains Nic Aldridge, MD, Bandai UK. Anime, in particular, has seen a “huge explosion” in the last three years as it transcends from the kidult market to younger children, and this is fuelling a wave of new products from the action figure and collectible specialist. As Netflix’s library was exhausted by children looking to while away the hours, the streaming service introduced around 200 different anime titles, thus bringing the joy of Japanese animation to an even wider audience. Tapping into the trend, Bandai has created a property called Anime Heroes, which is taking the key characters from the most popular properties and putting them under an umbrella branding as action figures.
Bandai’s Banpresto range is also proving highly popular and features many anime properties including Dragonball and Naruto – its two hottest properties - alongside One Piece, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Demon Slayer. “There’s definitely a trending shift there and I absolutely see this carrying on,” says Nic. It’s a part of the business which enjoys crossover between the company’s kids and kidult audiences; the kidult market has been a growing part of the company’s core strategy for the past five years. “We like to think of ourselves as being the experts in that area because of our company heritage and because of our specialism in the boys’ categories,” says Nic. “In the collectible kidult area, we now offer in excess of 50 different properties to our collector channel. When we lose kids to video games, what we try to do is get them back again by producing more sophisticated collectible action figures at higher price points, specifically made with this older age group in mind. We are starting to work with mass retailers to educate them on what the big properties are and how they resonate in the market.” Marketing for kidult products pretty much takes care of itself with collectors sharing news and
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promoting their collectibles among fellow fans. “It’s more about creating the best product and putting it in the best place,” explains Nic. “The audience is so engaged that the result is community-based marketing. It’s a very different profile to traditional kids’ advertising.” Other successful gaming product ranges at Bandai include Animal Crossing, and Nic says there is more to come in the near future. “We are also a video games company in one of the different business verticals and so we use the skills, experience and knowledge of that sector to further our overall understanding and growth in the market,” he tells Toy World. Another company which has seen the growth of Anime among other categories is pop culture collectibles specialist Funko. As marketing manager Chris Barnett explains: “While blockbuster releases and popular content drops always keep the fans coming back to Funko, it is the unpenetrated genres where the sharpest growth is being seen. Categories such as Anime, Gaming, Music and Sport are gaining in popularity, as consumers increasingly look to demonstrate their fandom in these areas.” It's these changing cultures and keeping the finger
