How toy companies exploit child-like innocence
The subtle art of separating parents from their hard earned money
There are three main ingredients to creating a toy empire.
Kids, gullible parents, and marketing tactics that would make Machiavelli proud.
In 2020, 81% of children under the age of 12 were reported to influence family purchases, translating to $500 billion in purchases a year.
To these companies, playtime is profit.
They don’t want you to be attentive to your children and raise them properly. They want you to give them toys so you have more time to yourself.
So they pull different psychological levers to make sure their products fly off the shelves and into the hands of unsuspecting children. Which makes kids go from not knowing who your brand to begging their parents buy the product.
All from just a single ad.
Pester Power
Toy companies rely on kids’ abilities to nag their parents to drive sales.
It’s like these kids are part of the sales team for these sinister toy companies. Constantly pitching and not taking no for an answer.
By creating enticing ads and strategically placing their products in high-visibility areas, they ensure that kids will repeatedly ask for their products.
The high exposure effect itself is enough to get kids curious on what the toy is about, but they amplify children’s pester power with two strategies that seem like life and death for kids.
Social influence and limited-time offers.
By creating a perception that all their friends have the toy. So of course your kid doesn’t want to be the only one at school without this special toy.
And to double down on that, they make it a limited-time offer.
That sense of urgency will make kids say things like “I promise if you buy me this I’ll never ask for another toy again!”
And since kids don’t yet understand the concept of “things come and go” or “life goes on,” they’ll think the hurt of not having this toy will last forever.
They really think there will never be anything like this again.
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Algorithms designed for kids
Ever wonder how your kid even knows who a specific character is?
Well It's no accident.
They were most likely targeted by the company or social media algorithms. With cunning precision, they exploit young minds through relentless market research. This includes analyzing trends in children's play patterns and media consumption.
Tiktok and Youtube tell more about these kids than any survey can. And it’s easy to create an ad that resonates with the content they’re already watching.
Or better yet, have the youtuber or tiktoker promote the product directly to your kids! It’s safe to say the younger the audience, the more impactful influencer marketing works.
Why do you think kids and family channels have the highest CPM’s on Youtube?
And the more the kids play on their iPads, the more data points these companies have to keep targeting them with new products with marketing tactics like subliminal messaging, color psychology, and peer pressure.
They know exactly what triggers kids to beg for their products.
The art of unboxing and collecting
LOL dolls changed the game by giving toys the element of surprise.
The unboxing experience itself is 90% of the fun. Each LOL Surprise Doll comes in a capsule with multiple layers that reveal various accessories and, eventually, the doll itself.
They literally sold $800 million worth of toys that kids couldn’t even see.
Youtube accounts like Cupcake Squad and CookieSwirlC would get millions of views on their unboxing videos. So when kids see YouTubers who are popular and live glamorously unbox the same toys they are, for a moment, they feel like their favorite influencer.
But the unboxing goes even deeper…
Each LOL doll has different styles, accessories, and rarity levels. This encourages children to collect them, trade with friends, and continuously seek out new dolls to complete their collections.
The thrill of finding a rare doll adds to the excitement of the unboxing experience.
And if they don’t get the rare doll they want?
They just beg their parents to get them another one and try to reason that it’s for their collection.
Because leaving things incomplete gives people a certain feeling of anxiety. That they just need to complete so they can move on with their life.