TIME EUROPE
December 11, 2000, Vol. 156 No. 24
Tumult in Toyland
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During the holiday season in particular there is one more trait that defines success: unavailability. Tales have already circulated of European parents telephoning stores in the U.S. in a desperate search for the latest version of PlayStation, sought after but not widely available on the Continent this Christmas. The toy of the moment in the U.K. is Thunderbirds' Tracy Island, based on a cult TV series from the 1960s that was recently rebroadcast in Britain. The $50 playset comprises Tracy Island, home of the now-vocal Tracy Brothers and their Thunderbird spaceships. The British press has played up Tracy Island shortages, leading panicked parents to form early morning queues outside toy stores simply on the rumor of incoming shipments. In one outlet that had officially sold out of the toy, London mother Kate Chaldecott gasped in triumph as she grabbed a playset that had been returned.
Her eight-year-old is lucky. According to Vivid Imaginations, Tracy Island's maker, only 60,000 playsets have been made, even though demand amounts to half a million. Part of the problem: a worldwide shortage of microchips, caused by producers supplying the booming mobile telecommunications industry at the expense of toymakers. "This is the first big year where microchips have really dominated" toys, says Nick Austin, Vivid Imaginations' chief executive. "There's a blur between the consumer electronics industry and the toy industry."
Even the humble building brick is affected. Lego, perhaps the world's best-known brickmaker, started pushing robots and digital transformer toys in 1998 to counter the company's first loss since it was founded in 1932. Lego's Robotics Invention System kit features more than 700 Lego pieces, an infrared transmitter and a microcomputer that allows kids to build and program their own robots. (The company insists most 12-year-olds can do it; it doesn't say whether 40-year-olds can.) This Christmas, Lego — the only European toy company among the world's top 10 — is releasing Vision Command, a videocamera attachment through which the robots can respond to what they "see." That means Lego-masters can program "intelligent bricks" to act as sentinels when the humans are out for dinner, or just to potter about after the family pet.
The $320 price tag for the total package is not Lego's only marketing problem. "Parents and children who grew out of Lego at an early age now think that Lego is synonymous with a building brick," says Nipper. "It's a tough sell to tell why this is something else. But looking at what's happening in the marketplace — more and more computer literacy, higher and higher penetration of platforms like PlayStations and PCs — if we don't utilize tech it will be too hard to compete in certain consumer segments." Toys with digital capabilities now account for about 5% of Lego's product range, says Nipper, and will increase to around 20% in five years. In 2001 Lego plans to introduce video-making kits in Europe for budding filmmakers of seven and over, as well as high-tech interactive toys for preschoolers.
Toymakers that don't embrace technology may find it thrust upon them. Earlier this year Meccano, a struggling producer of construction toys founded in 1901, was purchased by Japanese company Nikko, which specializes in remote-controlled toys. In 2002, Meccano is expected to launch construction kits equipped with computer chips and artificial intelligence. Hornby, a British firm renowned for its train sets, has shifted its focus from being a toy concern to being a hobbies and collectibles company: recent innovations, including a virtual railway on cd-rom, seem to be directed toward adults, rather than at the children who were once Hornby's engine and caboose.
And so it goes, as even the most traditional of toy companies seek to innovate — and to reinvigorate their brands. "The mindset is, 'How do we stand out so people want to play with the old toy, but we add something?'" says Jon Salisbury, publisher of World Toy News. It's a question that even makers of charmingly simple toys are starting to ask. Sweden's Brio, which produces classical wooden trains and accessories, has added built-in chips to provide sound and light. Vilac, a French outfit that has been making brightly painted wooden toys and games for nearly 100 years, may enhance its wooden animal pulltoys with computer sound chips so that dogs can bark and frogs can croak.
But as the foot soldiers of the toy world march across the digital divide, the question remains: Are all these gizmos good for children? Toys are "basically designed to sell and make money," says Caroline Goodfellow, curator of the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood in London, "not with the child's best interests at heart." MORE>>
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