When people think about transition periods, they usually think of going from one state to another. The reality tends to be far murkier and some of the events in the kids industry this week underline that fact;
The omni-channel marketing trend continues: Mattel launches Playground Productions, a division focusing on multi-platform storytelling.
Amazon are pulling back slightly from their publishing effort because Barnes and Noble refused to get behind it. Physical retail isn’t going away just yet.
Argos are scaling down their catalogue to focus on digital. I feel they’re throwing the baby out here. Print is a powerful driver for online/digital if used right. Looks like they’re trying to save stores rather than looking at the underlying data.
Digital brands continue to prop up the struggling toy licensing market in Europe (down 7% from 2012). Toy sales for the top-three performing brands to July are Angry Birds Star Wars (£5.3M), Skylanders (£4M) and Monsters University (£2.9M).
Off the back of the Nabi launched by Tesco, another kids tablet hits the market, this one backed by Turner.
Despite an across-the-board decline in kids magazines (Jan-June) Moshi Monsters is still crushing it in print (208,535 copies per issue, over twice that of its nearest competitor, Peppa Pig).
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