Mattel, for instance, like many consumer goods companies, has until now treated, and its 22 or so other Web sites as advertising forums, places to showcase toys with the hope that children will nag their parents for them.
Products like these represent a change not only in the design and function of toys, but also in how toy makers use their Web properties. That Barbie in the docking station? Go to a physical store and buy her an extra outfit, and you get access to even more Web content. With children’s leisure-time habits shifting online, toy companies are responding with new products that can be construed as fun both online and offline. The total toy industry’s annual sales were up just 0.8 percent in May, compared with two years ago.
The trends that have brought about BarbieGirls, Webkinz and their ilk are clear: While sales of dolls, action figures and outdoor toys are down, electronics sales to children were up 16.6 percent over the last two years as of May, the latest month available from the NPD Group, a research firm that tracks retail trends. Some of these sites (like the Barbie one) can be used in a limited way without purchasing merchandise - the better to whet young appetites - but others, like the popular Webkinz site, are of little or no use without a store-bought product or two (or three, or a dozen). Instead of asking young Web surfers to punch in their parents’ credit card numbers, and other sites are sending customers to a real-world toy store first. The new doll is a roundabout way of charging for online content. Now, Barbie has a docking station.Ī new doll hitting retail shelves this week is familiar in many ways - she’s got outfits galore - but she also has some unusual features: this Barbie, who is smaller and less shapely than her standard namesake, functions as an MP3 music player.Īnd when her feet are plugged into the iPodesque docking station that she comes with, she unlocks pages and pages of games, virtual shops and online chatting functions on the Web site.
0 kommentar(er)
