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Zuru and World of Dance partnered to create content that promotes Zuru’s Bunch O Balloons water balloons as a summer activity.
The program includes multiple styles of marketing, including user-generated content, events that feature the dance community using Bunch O Balloons, and a sponsorship of the World of Dance summer events in the U.S.
Slinky is celebrating its 70th birthday this year, and Alex Brands is looking for fans to post a video of themselves or their kids singing the Slinky Jingle (See video below). For every video posted on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram with the #SlinkyDay70 hashtag, Alex Brands will donate one Slinky toy to the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, with a maximum donation of 1,000 Slinky toys.
The Special Olympics 2015 Summer World Games are underway, and Toys “R” Us employees throughout the greater Los Angeles area are volunteering at the 10-day event. Company volunteers are on hand to encourage and cheer on athletes as they reach personal victories in a variety of sporting activities.
Toys “R” Us Inc. will launch its fifth consecutive fundraising campaign to benefit Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to finding a cure for childhood cancer. Beginning this Saturday through July 31, monetary donations will be collected at all Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us stores nationwide and online at toysrus.com/alexslemonade.
As part of The Genius of Play campaign, the Toy Industry Association (TIA) has kicked off an industry-wide social media initiative to open a dialogue with parents and raise awareness about the developmental benefits of play. TIA suggests that the social media posts range from encouraging kids and parents to engage in imaginative play, such as arts and crafts and dress up, to asking parents to share how toys and play helped their children reach important developmental milestones.
Last year, Bunch O Balloons raised close to $1 million, thanks to a highly successful Kickstarter campaign. Now the product, already launched by Zuru Toys, will make its promotional debut with a guerrilla and experiential marketing campaign this spring. In addition, Bunch O Balloons is expected to receive widespread support across retailers in anticipation of summer.
The Toy Book (TTB): In what new ways are you using social media to correspond directly with consumers?
Mattel: We engage with consumers across all brand and corporate social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, as well as retailer sites, like Wal-Mart and Kohl’s. At Mattel, we have a fully functioning reporting and engineering team dedicated to understanding what the consumer is saying and turning that data into actionable improvements for both our manufacturing and design process.
The Toy Book (TTB): How do you use 3-D printing in your R&D? Do you plan to incorporate 3-D printing into your consumer offerings in the future?
Tony Norman (TN): We have three commercial-grade 3-D printers at Hexbug headquarters that run pretty much continuously. Design is iterative, and our 3-D printers enable us to engage in rapid prototyping. This rapid prototyping allows us to get real working samples out to focus groups quickly and frequently, so as to gather feedback and make the necessary changes prior to starting production. This highly accelerated production process significantly reduces our time to market and sets us apart from other toy companies.
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Outfit7 Limited has signed a licensing agreement for its Talking Tom and Friends franchise with Toyze, an app store for 3-D-printed customizable game characters. Users will be able to customize Talking Tom and Friends characters into 3-D models, share their creations on social channels, and bring them to life as 3-D-printed toys.
Talking Tom is currently available on Toyze’s app at both Google Play and the App Store.
Toyze offers two options to model and produce toys. First is the free app for 3-D customization: The company’s intuitive, in-app 3-D editor allows users to personalize characters in 3-D view, add accessories and attributes, play with poses and sizes, and build their collections. Once completed, users can share their creation via Facebook, Instagram, and email with friends and family.
Users will also be able to [Read more...]
