Company Profile
Toynamics
Having a corking good time
at Toynamics Toynamics UK & Ireland, part of the Hape Holdings Group, continues to enjoy strong growth and this year welcomes a new sustainable range unlike any other in the toy market. Rachael Simpson-Jones paid a visit to managing director David Allan and EU Brand & Campaign manager Emma Damerell at the company’s Leicestershire office to find out more about the company’s latest developments.
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oynamics is a subsidiary of the 37-year-old Hape Group. Headquartered in Germany, the group’s owner, Peter Hanstein, is known within the toy industry for his keen eye for business opportunities and unrelenting hunger for growth and expansion. This approach has turned Hape Group into a global multi-milliondollar company with a presence in 60 countries - and a subsidiary in 30 of them. The majority of these subsidiaries also act as distributors and are known as Toynamics, allowing the company to leverage its
strengths and turn its offices across the world into one-stop-shops for a huge range of toys and kids’ products. For Toynamics UK & Ireland, that strength also manifests in European distribution – one of the appeals that landed it the Skip Hop portfolio of thoughtfully-designed baby and nursery products back in 2020. Hape Group also owns its own factories (three in China and another on the way) in which its wooden and plastic ranges are made, plus a bamboo forest complete with a hotel. With Peter at the helm, there’s no such thing as mission accomplished. Instead, he’s constantly seeking new opportunities: in July, he was touring Europe to assess potential distribution and manufacturing opportunities owing to changing rules and Covid-regulations in China. As a wooden toy specialist – Hape is the biggest wooden toy manufacturer in the world, both white-label and own-brand - it makes sense for Hape Group to locate its manufacturing close to where its renewable, sustainable timber suppliers are. The Hape range spans a wide range of categories: Baby, Music, Railway, Bath, Outdoor, Walkers & Ride-Ons, Educational, Arts & Crafts, Role-Play, Push & Pull, Junior Inventor, Kitchen, Dollhouse and Quadrilla, the STEAM-leaning, physics-powered marble run brand. What has long struck me about the Hape range is that none of these categories feels undernourished: all contain beautiful, thoughtfully designed toys such as the Railway Bucket Builder Set, which comes contained in packaging that turns into part of the track. Another best-seller is the Hide-andSeek Periscope from the Nature Fun range, a line of explorative toys and accessories that foster a love of the outdoors. Nature Fun products are made from
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bamboo grown in the forest mentioned earlier, making this a strong option among eco-minded consumers. The company is utilising bamboo in more and more of its Hape products, as well as other, even more novel, sustainable materials – but we’ll come back to that. The Hape brand is enjoying much greater awareness nowadays, in large part, according to David, thanks to Emma’s dedicated marketing efforts. Toynamics UK & Ireland keeps a very close eye on emerging wooden toy brands, of which there has been a sudden influx over the past year, though Hape’s huge growth and sales figures bear testament to its good standing among consumers. Emma, meanwhile, also notes that consumers are increasingly seeking out high-quality toys and toy brands that will last a good amount of time. “Having Emma as our head of marketing has much a huge difference,” explains David. “Our marketing is so much more polished now: Emma has reconfigured our whole strategy and Hape is far more recognisable and in-demand than it’s ever been before. And it’s not just our retail customers we’re seeing come round to the brand more and more: consumers actively look for it now too.” Emma adds: “It’s been beneficial to the Hape brand to look at it from a 360-degree perspective. We’re supporting retailers with theatrical displays – play tables, railway-themed FSDUs, eye-catching CDUs and events. Our sales team can cater to pretty much any retail request, and shoppers want and expect these things now. At the same time, we’re also promoting to end consumers with brand partnerships, social media, influencers and much more.” Baby Einstein, one of Hape Group’s joint ventures, comprises wooden toys (Hape’s input) with tech
