Kid’s Entertainment And Selling Toys

To anyone who’s ever studied the toy and kid’s entertainment industry, one thing that they would notice is the relationship between toy companies and their kid’s entertainment partners. It’s no secret that when one industry thinks about a product, they also think about the other industry.

This is no coincidence as both of these industries have one main target customer: children. We all know the story, a child sees a kid’s entertainment show and is fascinated either to the hosts of the show or the cartoon characters.

This fascination leads to a desire to buy a merchandise associated with the hosts or the cartoon characters. The kid pesters his parents to buy the merchandise and their usually exasperated parents relent and buys their child the merchandise.

This buying cycle is repeated in many homes around the world. In fact, many kid’s entertainment and toy companies are hoping for such a thing to happen when they first launch their products.

It’s no secret that one of the masters of this game is Disney. Of course, many of Disney’s movies have been blockbuster moneymakers, but they make several times more with the merchandise derived from their movies.

Just how significant the entertainment factor is to the sale of merchandise associated to them? Just take a good look at one of Disney’s most profitable movies, the cartoon version of the Lion King.

Not only is Lion King so popular that even a highly successful Broadway show got based from it, but informal sources stated that Disney was also able to charge one of the highest if not the highest license fee in the industry, an astounding 25%. The usual license fees are about 7 to 10%.

This might be the reason why Disney seems to be snagging entertainment IP right left and right. Currently, two of Disney’s most well known acquisitions are the Star Wars and the Marvel movie franchise.

You may not be as big as Disney yet, but it’s not too early for you to be thinking of this strategy for making money. If you are purely just a kid’s entertainment or a toy company, it is advisable that you look both ways.

I made a video about a successful animator who shows her animations in YouTube. Her name is Vivziepop (Vivziepop YouTube Channel ). She and many other animators in YouTube seem to be following the strategy of Disney and other big entertainment and merchandising companies.

They are also selling their own line of merchandise like toys and dolls to complement the contents of their animation channel. If you ever setup a YouTube channel, it is worth thinking about what kinds of merchandise you can sell that would complement your channel.

This is especially true when you are catering to young people like children who have strong influence in determining what kinds of merchandise their parents buy for them. Most parents have a soft heart when it comes to their children.

This sort of thinking applies to adult collectors as well. There are enough action figure collectors out there for example to make such a toy and kid’s entertainment business strategy feasible.

Many people now collect toys not as a hobby only, but as an investment as well. This is the reason why you see seemingly mature adults go to toy conventions just to buy toys that are really meant for children.

Have you heard the story about Final Faction action figures and the Dollar Tree strategy regarding them? I’m not an American and have no access to physical Final Faction action figures or nor have I stepped in any American Dollar Tree stores.

What I can report is based from the online articles I read and the YouTube videos I watched. If you are not familiar with Final Faction, here is their YouTube channel: Final Faction: The Animated Series

As you can see from their YouTube channel, there is only a very mild storyline, but this doesn’t seem to stop people from buying them and perhaps hoping that they would be collectables one day.

And based from the many YouTube videos I have watched regarding these action figures, they seemed to have developed some sort of a following never mind that they are only priced at US$ 1.00 which makes them perfect giveaway gifts for children.

This makes me wonder if other stores would be following the same strategy of creating hype in their toys by creating straight to YouTube videos for them. This could be the way that toys would be sold in the future.

If you want more proof that more toy companies and even toy retailers are adopting the YouTube strategy, look no further than Hasbro who has put many of their old GI Joe episodes and movies in YouTube.

This must have to do with the fact that old GI Joe action figures and other merchandise are still selling despite that decades have passed since the original episodes and movies of GI Joe were last shown.

Not only is Hasbro showing the old episodes and movies, but they are also showing brand new episodes in YouTube. This must be a play to revive the popularity of GI Joes in popular culture. He-Man and the ThunderCats among others are also stated for revival.

It seems that toy companies would keep milking their tried and true franchises by keeping them continually refreshed years after they first became popular. This is the reason why we keep seeing reboots of TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

It is unlikely that you would ever become a big toy or kid’s entertainment company, but if you do, remember not to abandon you old hosts and characters which were once popular. They might just become popular again one day.

What if you’re not really in the business of providing kid’s entertainment? Could you still sell a successful merchandise? It seems for these questions, the Japanese have an answer: Mascots.

I don’t know if I can say it for all the organizations in Japan, but they seem to have a mascot for organization that exists in Japan. An electric utility? They have mascots for these utilities. A jailhouse? They have a mascot for this too. A funeral parlor? Yes, they do have mascots for these too.

Some of these mascots become so popular that entire lines of merchandise and entertainment content are made just for them. This is the reason why I’m surprised that the rest of the world have not really kept up with Japan and its mascots.

Of course, there are western companies like McDonalds who sell their toys based from their mascots and even make kid’s entertainment starring their mascots. But imagine if companies like Honda or Toyota or some other car companies would market their own line of transformer toys as mascots.

Not only will Honda or Toyota cars be more appealing to children, but to some adults as well. I guarantee that children would look at Honda or Toyota cars in a different light once they see these seemingly ordinary cars featured as transformers.

This is a perfect example of how an entertainment tied to the product can actually sell the product itself. This is the reason why there are now companies who are making movie like advertisements to sell a product.

One of the best examples we have right now is in the marketing of Barbie, the doll. I don’t exactly know when it started, but Barbie animated movie specials started to be created. Soon, we already have regular Barbie episodes being shown both in television and online.

I don’t know if my experience is the same with you, but in the limited time I watched a couple of these Barbie episodes and movies, a Barbie ad would also appear. So what basically happens to me is that I’m exclusively watching Barbie from the stories to the ads.

You can say that this is a very effective advertising strategy when the movie or the episode itself is advertising of the product. From time to time, I watch cartoons and for example, if there is a cartoon about Batman, I would definitely see an ad about Batman action figures.

If it’s a Ben Ten cartoon I’m watching, chances are that I would see an ad about Ben Ten action figures. I can see how this form of advertising can be very effective to young children.

You might not like how YouTube plays a big influence and may dictate your entertainment and merchandising efforts, but this is the reality. YouTube is the biggest video sharing website in the world.

It is only second to Google in terms of search numbers. There are in fact people like me who have almost depended on YouTube for our daily video entertainment. If truth must be told, my large screen television is gathering dust while I watch YouTube videos the entire day.

I know that I’m not alone. I also know of several people who have not only stopped watching television, but have also cancelled their cable television subscriptions. The numbers of people like me are growing.

That is why it pays to plan your YouTube strategy early. As you get viewership traction for your videos, it is essential that you follow this up with a merchandising strategy. It could be as simple as offering downloadable stickers. It does not have to be toys at the onset.

Take note that I’m using a kid’s entertainment channel as an example. If for example, you offer downloadable stickers, make sure you add your YouTube channel’s name to also spread your channel physically when people see your stickers.

I hope you’re not forgetting video game apps because they’re essentially a toy or merchandise, depending on how you look at them. I don’t watch a lot of cartoons, when I do, I usually watch the Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon channels.

In both of the channels, they have video game apps linked with the characters or their shows themselves. I for example saw video game app advertisements showing the Teen Titans and the Loud House characters.

Video Game app development companies are adopting the same strategy as well. Many popular video game apps have short videos advertising their games. Usually, this is a short story about the characters or the game itself.

Don’t forget that the video game app market is the fastest growing segment of the video game industry. As of 2020, mobile gaming already accounted for half the revenue of the global video gaming industry.

As of 2021, it is predicted that the global mobile video gaming industry would surpass the US 100 billion dollar mark by 2023. It is now 2022 and it is now less than a year before this figure would be surpassed.

If you are involved in products made for children and young people in general, and maybe for those who are young at heart, it is worth tying up your products to very entertaining ads which could be cleverly designed as just pure entertainment.

Like it or not, you have to make entertaining YouTube content as one of the parts of your advertising strategy. Many big name toy and kid’s entertainment companies already do this. It is advisable that you follow their example.

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Vivziepop YouTube Channel

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