New York Toy Fair

Highlights taken from the Toy Fair show at the Jacob Javits Center include:

• SpongeBob and Thomas the Train continue strong in the toy arena.
  
  
• Pokemon USA is celebrating its properties 10th anniversary.
  
  
• Retro brands on the move are Strawberry Shortcake, Trolls, and My Little Pony.
  
  
• Car manufactures continue to have a featured spot in selected showrooms (such as Jada Toys) to capture the car culture craze and the lifestyle of the fans.
  

• “Cars” the movie made its premiere on toy products throughout the showrooms.

• Today’s children are savvy to technology and need more enticement. Children stop playing with toys at an earlier age to move up to video games and other consumer electronics. This has created a shrinking toy market. The buzz at the Toy Fair this year is that toy companies are facing tough competition with electronic consumer products. Some companies are following this trend by adding more electronics to their toys and designing them to be more interactive with the child. Will there eventually become a blend of consumer electronics and the toy industry? With consumer electronics taking toy industry market share, will the toy industry be able to take back market share by moving into the consumer electronics industry?

• Toy marketers are now using “word-of-mouth listening” as a strategy. Thanks to the fast growing acceptance of the Internet--message boards, chat rooms, blogs--toy marketers have the ability to capture “word-of-mouth” from the Internet and develop strategies.