Brand Noise

Toys for an aging japanese market

(Bloomberg) Purimopueru is a knee-high Japanese doll with soft, apple-spotted cheeks and big, black button eyes. It comes in green and pink, and when you cuddle it, it talks back. The doll, an award-winner at last week's Tokyo Toy Show, is generating new sales among the elderly for creator Namco Bandai Holdings Inc. as Japan's birthrate drops.

Bandai, which markets 20 percent of its toys to adults, started the Purimopueru line for children in 1999. It's now Bandai's best-selling doll with more than a million bought, mostly by women in their 50s and 60s, said the product's creative director, Hiroko Tajima.

``If you're the government, you've got the tax base to think about. But if you're selling toys or services, the shrinking market is really nothing compared to the gains you can get with a single product that sells well,'' says Martin Schulz, senior economist at Fujitsu's Research Institute in Tokyo. read more

Parent/Kid Sharing is About Fun

Check out this bit of kid/parental sharing. Can someone give me one compelling reason to act like an adult? The idea of play doesn’t stop when a Gen Xer or Yer becomes an adult, let alone a parent. Now it's about seeing the fun side of all things. Even when your house is being overrun by Littlest Pet Shop, as demonstrated by director Rebecca and her dad, the cameraman.

The Kids are Alright

In fact they're so alright, they're the key to grown-up marketing.

Early reports on the ill health of the kids upfront have been greatly exaggerated, according to network ad sales executives, who hope to swap out Chicken Little projections of a flat to down market in favor of a more blustery Foghorn Leghorn outlook.

"Synergies between TV and digital are very strong," says Brad Davis, vp, ad sales for Disney Online. "The buyer culture is really starting to change from a planning perspective. And at the client level, most decisions are now being made from a 360-degree standpoint."

Like Disney Channel, Nickelodeon has aggressively gone after clients looking to reach parents who watch along with their kids. Since 2006, when Nick did some $50 million in nonendemic business, categories like insurance, automotive, travel, financial services, consumer electronics and wireless have become a sizable part of the network's business model. Who knew?

Read the whole story.

Toy Companies Phasing Out Nickel-Cadmium Batteries

Two of the largest U.S. toy companies, Toys "R" Us Inc. and Mattel Inc., said they will phase out nickel-cadmium batteries, a technology associated with widespread environmental contamination and health problems in China.

The move comes as toy makers are scrambling to rid their products of toxins, after a wave of recalls last year triggered panic about the safety of Chinese-made toys. The bans on cadmium batteries are a sign the industry's safety concerns are beginning to extend to workers in China, where the vast majority of the world's toys are made.

Read more.

Kid Robot Sponsoring Dunny Trading Parties

Some of the most incredible talents in the world have done Dunny over french. The new 3-Inch mini series appears world-wide on February 21 featuring collaborators, Superdeux, Genevieve Gauckler, 123Klan, SupaKitch, Easy Hey, Tilt, Mist, Der, Tizieu, Ajee, Doze X Secretlab, Nasty, Jack Usine, Koralie, Onde X Trbdsgn, Koa, Oktus the Woodboy and Skwak.

Now, they're holding trading parties to swap them, but the parties are not limited just to Dunnys. You can bring beaucoups of items with you to trade with other toy fans during the events.

Kid Robot, Secret to “Yo Gabba Gabba!” Success?

“Yo Gabba Gabba!” began appearing on Nickelodeon in August, and with remarkable speed it has acquired fans who are preschoolers and fans who are old enough to be their parents...Charles Rivkin, the president and chief executive of Wildbrain, which produces the show, says, “I challenge you to find another preschool show that four months after going on the air is actually selling adult apparel at Barneys.”

While plenty of shows for children have also appealed to adults — “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” “H. R. Pufnstuf,” even “Sesame Street” — “Yo Gabba Gabba!” updates this idea for a generation that, it has been argued, is ambivalent about letting go of its own youth.

The real deal came when the original creators hooked up with Wildbrain. Back in 2006, Wildbrain acquired a majority interest in Kidrobot, which makes and sells high-end “designer toys” and apparel that appeal to fashionable young adults (who may or may not be parents). Thus “Gabba”-related products arrived in exclusive retail settings much faster than usual, demonstrating consumer demand to other merchandise partners.

You couldn’t ask for more perfect serendipity in partners, which goes to prove that authenticity starts at the drawing board. Had “Yo Gabba Gabba!” been conceived under other premises, it wouldn’t have been strong enough to bring into the Kid Robot world. On the other hand, if “Yo Gabba Gabba!” merchandise went straight to big box retailers you would’ve had a watered down product. The Kid Robot connection offers the brand longevity, with more staying power than it would have had on its own.

(Image: T-shirt recrafted into dress by JinJur.)
Read the article.

Please Look After This Bear

We here at scenarioDNA carry a big torch for Paddington Bear who will celebrate his 50th in 2008. Sadly, we read this on Brand Strategy's blog. We hear you, Brand Strategy! Paddington is not the kind of bear who sells out...a fierce hard stare from "Darkest Peru" to those behind this:

"Paddington Bear (for tis he) is renown for his love of marmalade sandwiches...So why is he being used to promote Marmite? Aside from sharing an opening syllable, the two condiments could not be more different...To mix an iconic lover of marmalade with a divisive, savoury brand such as Marmite is both inauthentic and just as plain wrong as putting both in the same sandwich."

Read more.

Meantime, Warner Bros. Pictures on Friday said it was bringing Paddington Bear to the screen in a live-action family comedy. David Heyman, producer of the "Harry Potter" movies, will produce the film while writer Hamish McColl, who penned "Mr. Bean's Holiday," will adapt the 11 "Paddington Bear" books published between 1958 and 1979 for the big screen.

Read more.

China Seeks to Clean Up 'Made in China' Image

The troubles just keep mounting on the image of products made in china.  It is without doubt a brand that keeps eroding aided by increased consumer choice and more demand for knowledge by the consumer than ever before.

Beijing has begun a robust public relations effort.  Diplomats and government officials are holding news conferences on food and product safety. They are showing contrition in high-level talks with Western officials and offering tours of government safety laboratories to foreign journalists.

Trying to convince the international community of its commitment to product safety after scandals involving everything from tainted pet food ingredients and toxic toothpaste to toys coated with lead paint, the government on Tuesday offered foreign journalists escorted tours of a toy factory and toy testing lab in Guangdong Province, where most of the country’s — and the world’s — toys are produced. The government hoped the tour would demonstrate that new safeguards had been put in place. Read more (NY Times)

GM Got Their Money's Worth

While Transformers may not be a very good movie - it sure plays like a brilliant piece of advertising. The apparent success of the opening speaks less about the future of film than it does the future of brand collaboration with blockbuster movie making.  Product placement has matured, and GM clearly got a lot of branding out of the myriad of elaborate effects scenes that feature their portfolio of products.  For some cinephiles the movie feels  more like an ad than an actual film as most of the time is waiting for the next scene with cars transforming, attacking or just going really fast.  This is an advertisers dream - and we can be sure to see footage played up in reasserting GM's brand mojo through the year.  DVD's or games at the GM showroom?  Probably.  Tansformers - The Ride?  Certainly. 

The question is if this win will birth a move ahead for product placement or will we see the usual lazy copycats.  The formula of mixing cult pop culture with high priced technical effects is unique here and works for this type of product - the same would not be true in other circumstances.  There are many more product placement opportunities to be had. The underlying lesson is that we need to recognize when product integration is working and understand why it works.  Understand it from the perspective of the entertainment first and not be too eager to slap brands on any blockbuster opportunity.

Get Ready... It's Product Placement Season

Last weekend's box office numbers demonstrate that it iss likely to be a lively Summer movie season.  With that comes the evolving craft of product placement.  In the trailer for the upcoming Transformers flick I was able to catch placement for Chevy, The Strokes and even Hasbro's sister brand My Little Pony for good measure (the Spiderman toy license is also owned by Hasbro).  The question is if the integration of product will fit or just sit in the frame like some past clumsy attempts have shown us.