The toy industry kicked off 2024 with Circana reporting an 8% decline in 2023 sales, following a year of rising inflation and tight consumer budgets. But the answer to turning the market around may lie in the consistently successful — if often overlooked — world of online influencers.
Toy industry counts on innovation to counter sales decline | Money Talks
In late March, Nico Blauw, president and CEO of toy manufacturer BOTI (short for Big on Toy Innovation), delved into what he called “the new toy economy” in an article for Global Toy News , imploring the industry to turn more attention to online spaces rather than traditional media coverage as it searches for the next big thing.
As evidence, he pointed out that nine of BOTI’s 12 most popular brands in Europe in the first quarter were either influencers with millions of subscribers or video games that were popular with content creators and sold as well as established brands like Pokémon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
“When we introduced these new brands to the market,” Blauw wrote, “the vast majority of toy buyers had no idea what we were talking about. That’s kind of a concern when you have little to no understanding of what a significant group of consumers are looking for, right?”
