Company Profile - KidsKnowBest

Toys and data

KidsKnowBest CSO Pete Robinson tells us why it’s important, in the world of toys, to listen to children, parents and the world around them.

One of the reasons I got into research within the kids and family industry is the movie Big. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was watching market research - one of the few times the subject is referenced in movies. Fast forward 40 years and I’ve learnt that hearing one child saying: “I still don’t get it. What’s fun about that?” can stop very expensive mistakes.

In the world of toys, listening to children, parents and the world around them can be incorporated during the following stages:

• Innovation; spotting a trend early and acting on it • Production and development; testing appeal, play patterns and usability

• Distribution; ensuring that your target audience knows where to find you

• Marketing; triggers and placement to optimise awareness and engagement

Whilst we all have a little bit of Tom Hanks’ intuition, as co-founder and co-CEO of Spin Master, Ronnen Harary, suggested in his recent podcast interview, Tom’s character didn’t use research – well, not in the traditional sense. Usually, data can spot opportunity and reduce risk. This has never been more relevant as blockbuster IPs take more share of space and voice, fragmentation creates a huge selection of ‘mid-weight’ IPs and the speed of trends means being late can result in failure.

There are many ways to use data effectively, but every person working in the toy industry should aim to do the following at each of those four stages:

• Innovation

Jeff Bezos says he frequently gets asked: 'What's going to change in the next 10 years?' but almost never gets the question: 'What's not going to change in the next 10 years?' He says: “I submit to you that the second question is actually the more important of the two, because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.”

There is so much ‘always-on’ information available which can point you in the right direction. KKB has developed a tool called Guava, which benchmarks and tracks social trends. This allows us to identify trends based on previous themes and patterns. When considering a licence which will go to market in two to three years, or developing a character-based show, how do we know if we are picking the right licence theme or main character style?

We consider multiple pieces of data that we calculate into an index which allows us to advise on what is about to become the next big thing. Two of the data pools are free and align somewhat with Jeff Bezos’s eye for what is not changing. A third is our commitment to embedding all our insights into the voice of the audience or consumer.

Social trends - What is being searched for right now - which tell us what is currently trending - and circular trends are both equally important. Once you find a stable benchmark in social search patterns, you can compare that over the last 10 years to anything from fidget toys to authors. Most play patterns can be predicted in their cycle, based on the search behaviours of that time.

Childhood development. Claims of changing developmental patterns are often misattributed. The ways in which children consume may differ but play patterns, for the most part, stay aligned. There is a great deal of existing research to learn from; we follow a host of academics and fund cross industry academia studies. This allows us to ensure that any toys or play systems we are developing are founded in a firm understanding of childhood. Consider the Lego Foundation or The Joan Gantz Cooney Centre, whose sole focus is to understand behaviour.

YTS. The best insights come from listening, and whilst there are scale opportunities via social listening, those insights come from being with young people and families. A tool called YTS has been central to Kids Know Best’s vision of giving young people a voice in the world around them. We speak with thousands each year, but you could speak with less. The key is to have no set agenda, but to let them talk about themselves. We are confident that our finest insights come not from a survey or scraping tool, but from the mouth of one person. Whilst you need to know what you heard is relevant, it is this tool that ensures that the world around young people reflects what they actually want - and not what we think they want.

At this stage we know if an idea will meet a consumer need and is desirable.

• Production and development

The best insights come from listening, but a huge part of understanding what people mean isn’t verbal. When testing new products or content, we need to know firstly when that product will fit into a household, and secondly why. The objective is to either replace an existing moment with a better solution or change a behavioural pattern. Both are challenging; in the first case you must do a better job than the incumbent, and the second requires making someone aware of something they previously may not have considered desirable.

Two methods we use at this stage are the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework and our in-play method.

The first JTBD framework helps interrogate what we are hoping to achieve. For a product/licence with a design use and outcome, we first need to know if there is a use case amongst consumers. People’s lives are busier than ever and fitting something new in their lives for more than a fleeting moment is hard. Therefore, IPs and products are far more likely to succeed if they actually meet a need. An IP can’t survive on a one-off purchase, it has to drive repeat purchase engagement.

We can use the JTBD framework to identify what that need is and ensure that it truly fits a moment that repeats in consumers lives. If it doesn’t, that doesn’t mean failure, but it will mean repeat usage will be harder to encourage, especially in this age of digital media, with so much entertainment delivered online and not offline. Here we may look at ‘pain points’ between parents and children: brushing teeth, bedtime routines or even a civilized breakfast. If a product or piece of content can support a parent and engage a child, you have solved a problem. The ongoing success of various fidget spinner toys has occurred because they meet a genuine need.

KKB also uses in-play methodology. One of our key visions was to stop removing respondents from their lives and placing them into a research method, and instead place the research methods into people’s lives. There is still a place for surveys and focus groups, but any good children’s researcher will be using multiple methods and getting time with children.

In-play allows us to test via parents at home. One to two-week studies involve a mix of observing behaviour and testing hypotheses. The first week will allow us to observe their behaviours to identify where our product might fit, via diaries and other tools. This includes where a family stores products - we don’t want to end up on a dusty shelf. The second week places the product into the home to observe its ability to engage and drive repeat usage. In addition, we get a deep understanding of the ability of our solution to create a positive response from the family home.

At this stage we know if our execution around the idea is engaging and if they will use our product.

• Distribution

For me, this is arguably the single most important stage in launching new products. If your audience cannot find you, even a great product won’t survive.

You absolutely must understand your consumer journey. It can be a fun, and free (other than time) exercise. Create 2-3 scenarios and map out their journey from not being aware to being a repeat purchaser. We use the AIDA model quite frequently; it is easy to follow. The flow chart should look at all the methods and tools you can use to drive the consumer to the next stage of the purchase. Where will they first hear about you? What series of prompts will make them consider you? When, where and why will that purchase happen?

Once those journeys have been mapped in a flow chart, all potential risks are added so we can look at solutions to minimize them.

At this stage no data has been used, just the ability to tell a story. But some elements of the journeys are guesses. We would rank each stage of the journey on a one to five scale of how sure we are that they will happen. ‘One’ suggests we don’t know, whereas ‘five’ is confident. Anything ranking ‘one’ or ‘two’ would be research in our YakYak polls to validate and remove the lack of confidence, e.g. will they buy this category in-store or online? What price-points are they already paying with competitor toys?

At this stage, we know if the market and the consumer expectation align and if they will find our product.

• Marketing

Creating demand with the right audience is important, because so many metrics are focused on volume, not quality. You want to find the consumer who will repeat-buy and recommend your product. Finding them first is important; if the wrong consumer finds you first, they may not use the product as it was intended, it will get forgotten at best.

Another KKB tool, called A Day in the Life (ADL), constantly measures consumers behaviour against categories and IPs, the where, when and why of how they consume media. This allows us to place media in the right places at the right times, and with the right messaging.

There are two stages here, the first being research for the target audience. Simple questions to ask are ‘where do they buy?’ which informs the placement of media and lowers wastage and ‘why do they buy?’ which informs the messaging.

The second stage is constant measurement of your campaign, aligning all the above data, the intent data, with transactional data. By understanding the correlation between intent and actual behaviour, we can continually optimise. It is important that the key success metrics are aligned, rather than just click-throughs or sales. We want repeat purchase behaviours.

At this stage we know if our product can find the right audience. In theory, data should have driven longlasting product success.