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Keeping in touch Toy World caught up with leading suppliers to find out how they have found preview season this year. We asked their thoughts on when they might return to physical shows and found out how they are helping retailers prepare for the big reopening.
Kate Scott
Samantha Goodburn
Marketing & business development manager, HoloToyz
Marketing & PR manager, Gibsons Games We certainly all missed London Olympia and the NEC this year and can’t wait for both events to return in 2022. However, despite being stuck at home we had a very successful show season. We held our first ever Virtual Trade Show in the first week of February. Customers signed up for 1-2-1 video calls with our team, enjoyed a live Q&A panel with our directors, and viewed a raft of newly created product videos we’ve developed to showcase our new releases. Our virtual show was a great way to connect with our customers after so long, and to discuss listings for later in the year. We plan to attend the AIS Independent Toy and Gift Show in September and hope that it will kickstart the physical shows after so long. We really miss meeting our customers and partners face-to-face, and can’t wait to get back. We have a special offer on all our games and children’s puzzles this month, ready for the big reopening. With families looking to spend more time off their screens, and to enjoy more traditional pastimes, we hope that this offer will encourage consumers to shop with and support their local retailers when they open their doors again.
Obviously, we would have loved to have attended the fairs this year, but we took part in the Spielwarenmesse Brand New Live Presentation on Instagram which was a hugely positive experience for us. We were very excited to showcase our new range of temporary tattoos, stickers, books and wall decals that come to life via augmented reality. We have been kept busy with Zoom calls and new orders ever since, and it has given us an opportunity to meet with people we would most likely never have come across at the shows, so it’s not all bad! As soon as we are allowed to leave Ireland and the shows are open, we’ll be back. Spielwarenmesse 2020 was brilliant for us, and we have some big news coming with licences, so we will have some exciting products to share at the next shows we attend. We’re looking forward to meeting and presenting to people in 3D again without having to worry about muting or freezing. As we are a new brand, our main focus in the months ahead will be on marketing. Influencer marketing is still a priority for us; we will be building our network of influencer collaborations to build awareness, excitement and knowledge about our range.
Ben Hogg
Clive Wooster
Marketing manager, Vivid Goliath Group
MD, Geomagworld
I joined Vivid at the end of the autumn/ winter preview season. It was great to see the variety of ways in which the company presented product to buyers during this unusual period, ranging from an assortment of strong sizzles through to engaging live demonstrations from our showroom, which has resulted in the best presentations we could have possibly offered, and a wealth of information conveyed to retailers. We all miss sitting around the table, showing samples you can touch and feel, and I can’t wait for this to return we move into spring/summer 2022 planning. We are big believers that the best possible way to show product is at a trade show and we’re look forward to attending as soon as these open back up - hopefully later on this year. We have a variety of marketing campaigns planned to start over the Easter period, and across the reopening of shops, to help drive consumers back into their local toy stores. We will be TV advertising games for the first time over Easter and running digital and social media for key brands such as Ryan’s World, to support the World Tour range. Digital and social will also be used to announce the latest ranges across Collectibles and Fashion Dolls for Love, Diana. We are also anticipating the arrival of longer and warmer days this month; April is a key period for our Outdoor ranges. These will be supported by TV across Phlat Ball, Wubble and Ryzr as well as our new launches, Hydro Clash and Wubble Rumblers.
We undertook virtual presentations from midJanuary this year with pretty much all our major customers. These seemed to be well received and we certainly enjoyed doing them - it was great to interact with buyers again, even if they were sitting in their kitchen (or attic). We limited our presentation time following feedback, and Nikki and I did a double act to communicate all the exciting developments and news for 2021 across our Magicube, Geomag and Mechanics product ranges. This included the fact that two-thirds of our current line is now made using recycled plastics, our new coordinated packaging, some of which incorporates try-me features, and our completely top-to-bottom redesigned Mechanics line for autumn/winter 2021. We’d love to get back out to physical shows, but we all need to put the safety of our customers and our teams first. I’m not sure early summer is going to meet that criteria, but hopefully things will progress to the point where we can attend shows safely. I’d like to think the Toymaster and AIS shows could be the first ones; we missed talking directly to our independent customers in 2020 and really need to put that right. During the most recent lockdown, we continued our drop ship programme, which a fair few indies took advantage of. We also have various promotional programmes in place ready for re-opening to make sure shelves are full. Stock availability is a key point – as our manufacturing is undertaken in Switzerland, we’ve had a relatively easy time keeping our stock at good levels in the UK warehouse. If retailers order it, we’ve probably got it.
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