Brand Profile - Aqua Dragons

Here be dragons

Brainstorm tells Toy World why Aqua Dragons remains a STEM brand of choice among parents and kids, and how the latest packaging and product developments will save both shelf-space and the planet.

Over the past 28 years, Brainstorm has gained a reputation for developing products and forging supply partnerships that bring exciting and educational toys to children around the world, from gel ant habitats, 2-in-1 globes and torches that project images, to animation kits and craft collectibles.

World Alive’s Aqua Dragons is a prime example of such a partnership, with a product range that truly has mass-appeal. Brainstorm has been privileged to exclusively distribute Aqua Dragons in the UK & ROI for more than 10 years and has plans to keep the products exciting and relevant for each new generation.

The Aqua Dragons brand continues to top the ‘hatch and grow’ category and is one of the highest ranked brands in the science aisle. In the UK & ROI, it ranks as one of Brainstorm’s best-selling brands. It has also continued to expand outside of the UK & Ireland throughout 2023, welcoming multiple new distribution and retail partners in the EU, Americas, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong and even Mongolia.

Word of mouth counts in an increasingly digital retail environment. In the last few years, Brainstorm has seen customer reviews on major retail websites get better and better, reaching into the more than 4-star category. This success lies in Aqua Dragons’ ongoing, fully funded R&D programme, which aims to find marginal improvements to its egg and food pouch recipes to increase hatching and longevity rates. The success of this funding is reflected in consumer reviews.

World Alive and Brainstorm also supply first class after sales service including video tutorials and print resources that help kids get their Aqua Dragons habitat up and running and maintain a healthy environment for the creatures. Each kit also includes a responsible ownership certificate to encourage kids to take good care of their Aqua Dragons brood. Parents and teachers, meanwhile, love the accompanying educational content, which introduces kids to the concepts of life cycles and anatomy.

The brand resonates with kids because bringing a generation of live creatures to life, and caring for them so they grow and thrive, is an authentically unique and fascinating experience; there are few children’s products that can create such a memorable experience nowadays. Amy Holden, the creator of the brand, says: “I truly believe Aqua Dragons is one of the best and most educational children’s product concepts available. I never get tired of seeing the look of surprise and fascination on the faces of people of all ages when I tell them they can create life from the contents of an Aqua Dragons egg sachet and some water.”

The Aqua Dragons brand has now moved to sustainable packaging free of single-use plastic. This is now filtering though into the home markets and has been very well received. The move is representative of Brainstorm’s overriding ambition to eradicate single use plastics from its packaging and encourage consumers to recycle. This is much easier when the packs are all paper based. The other good news is that the new packs reduce the shelf space needed for merchandising, freeing up space for more product and sales messages instead. The retail packaging is hugely impactful: this, combined with excellent consumer brand awareness, makes for very strong sales.

Behind the scenes, Aqua Dragons is involved in a long-term project, testing the viability of a petrochemical free, biodegradable tank.

Brainstorm will manage the introduction of new Aqua Dragons product concepts in 2024 for the UK and Irish markets. More information is yet to be announced, but for now all that can be revealed is that World Alive is bringing even more examples of what happens in nature to its Aqua Dragons kits.

Brainstorm will continue to support the Aqua Dragons brand beyond the new product and packaging developments. The company has a 10-year history of consumer advertising the brand; this has carried through into 2023 and will continue for the rest of the year. Almost 100% of the spend was initially dedicated to linear TV advertising but now, with the guidance of its media agency, Havas, Brainstorm is adopting a much more diverse approach, adding YouTube, VOD, social media, PR and print media to the mix.

World Alive is also investing heavily in consumer marketing. This year it has entered a collaboration with top 10 children’s band, Hopscotch Songs, to release a fun and catchy track: The Aqua Dragons song, which is available on Spotify and iTunes. An animated version is also on YouTube. As a viral brand, World Alive continues to work with highly influential Aqua Dragons partners to share unboxing, road testing and viral pet videos.