Many marketers know the phrase, “stolen with pride”. It refers to a ‘tool’ for innovation when you ‘borrow’ an idea from another category or country and transfer it to your market. One of the cases most often quoted is that of Unilever’s Magnum ice cream, which i said to be based on US ice cream brand Dove.

Reading Johan Lehrer’s excellent new book, ‘Imagine : How Creativity works’,  I came across another early example: the birth of Barbie.

The story starts with Ruth Handler watching her daughter Barbara play with paper dolls in the 1950s and noticing that she gave them ‘adult’ roles. At the time, most children’s dolls were representations of babies or young children. Ruth suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, who just happened to be a senior executive at  the Mattel toy company. However, he was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel’s directors.

The seismic change took place during the Handlers’ summer vacation to Switzerland in 1956, when the family began ‘stealing with pride’. Lehrer states that Elliot Handler’s wife: “noticed a strange looking doll in the window of a cigarette shop. The doll was eleven and a half inches tall, had platinum-blond hair, long legs and an ample bosom. Her name was Bild Lilli. Although Ruth didn’t know it at the time – she didn’t speak German – the doll was actually a sex symbol, sold mainly to middle-aged men (- That’s why the doll was only stocked in bars and tobacco stores.) But Handler didn’t get the joke – she took one look at the blond Bild Lili and saw a perfect toy for young girls.”

Ruth bought three of the dolls, giving one to her daughter and taking the other two back to Mattel in the US.  The design of the doll was slightly reworked (with help from engineer Jack Ryan) and given a new name – Barbie – after the Handlers’ daughter, Barbara.

The doll made its début at the American International Toy Fair in New York on March 9, 1959; now Barbie’s official birthday.

Lehrer goes on to describe how the toy was by no means an overnight success. Early market research showed that some parents were unhappy about the doll’s chest, which had distinct breasts, while Sears initially refused to carry a toy with “feminine curves”. Despite that, some 350,000 Barbie dolls were sold during the first year of production.

Since then the toy has – again according to Lehrer – “ become a cultural icon, beloved by girls, burned by feminists and immortalized by Warhol. Mattel has sold more than a billion Barbies: a salacious German figurine is now one of the most popular toys in the world”

For me, the above isn’t merely a lovely story that demonstrates the power of stealing with pride, but also a timely reminder that not all innovations are immediate successes.

Footnote:

And finally, just in case you’re interested, the Bild Lilli doll was based on a character who appeared in a comic strip drawn by Reinhard Beuthin for the newspaper Die Bild-Zeitung. Lilli was a blonde bombshell; a working girl who knew what she wanted and was not above using men to get it. The Lilli doll was first sold in Germany in 1955, and sales continued until Mattel acquired the rights in 1964 and ceased production.

Ebay…it’s known for being the place where you can get things quickly, cheaply, fast…and it’s also known for providing sellers with an opportunity to charge amounts well in excess of the products’ original RRP due to limited supply.

So we were astounded to hear the news in the Daily Mail last week that varioust ‘touts’ are ‘cashing in’ on toys which have limited availability but are priceless to those parents desperate to please their kids come this Sunday.

Here’s a snapshot of Lou Ellerton, who heads up our TVE Kids practice, being quoted in this article – and then in this one on the Financial News website - on her opinion on such high prices for kids’ toys:

“ ‘This is a very cynical manoeuvre by touts to exploit parents at Christmas’….She said that parents should try to be ‘realistic’ and assess how long a child will actually use the toy for when considering paying over the odds for it. ”

So…just how much do you want to give your kids that Sylvanian Families set for more than double its original price?

For more information on TVE Kids and our expertise in kids marketing and strategy, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!

It was announced yesterday that Airfix is set for a return under the stewardship of its new owner, Hornby. The target audiences for the new range of products are adult enthusiasts (with models priced over £100) and a new generation of children (with its pocket money starter kits priced at £6.99). Of the two, it will be relatively easy to re-engage with the adult target although it may be somewhat more of a challenge to capture the hearts and minds of today’s children.

However Hornby should be encouraged by the fact that there are clear indicators of a resurgence of interest in traditional childhood values witnessed by the success of the book ‘Fifty Dangerous Things (you should let your children do)’. Additionally, it is the more traditional toy brands and products that are faring well in the recession, no doubt reflecting the nostalgic comfort value for parents and grand parents.

Kids are spoilt for choice with regards to leisure options and interactive media/gaming is often their pursuit of choice when they have any down time. However this preference is due to saliency, access, habit and ease of availability rather than an inherent lack of appeal of more traditional past times. Given the opportunity, children love to slide down hills on trays or build rope swings in the woods, it’s just that busy parents often do not have the time to show them the pleasures of such basic activities.

The economic pressures that families have endured in the last few years has provided more time however and has forced many to explore cheaper ways to keep the children entertained, and in so doing has caused many to re-calibrate their life values and priorities. Hopefully these attitudes will be maintained as we come out of the recession and if so, Airfix may well be successful in recruiting its new generation of model makers.

There appears to be a big fan club for Playmobil here at The Value Engineers, as it received quite a few nominations from the team. As with many toy brands there is a very sizeable adult collector market for Playmobil which beyond collecting in its own right, manifests itself in online war gaming and movie making communities. This is another great example of a kids brand that allows adults to regress to simpler times of unbridled imagination and permissive play time.

“My favourite kids’ brand is Playmobil. I had endless fun as a youngster setting up the Playmobil farmyard, Playmobil hospital and Playmobil school! Its such a fun brand which encourages imagination and creativity. And all the miniature parts that you get in the sets are fascinating! We used to pool our Playmobil with our cousins and build a Playmobil Island! It never got boring and we all enjoyed it, boys girls and all ages. For years we’d do this everytime we all met up and I vividly remember how much fun it was! Recently we had some toys in the office for a workshop and there was a Playmobil Ancient Egyptian set. I wanted to take it out and set it up.” Rebecca Gaul, Consultant

 ”Playmobil: I am amazed at the level of detail that goes into a playmobil toy and have massively fond memories of being given a camper van set when I was little. It was the only set I ever had and I loved it. Despite asking for more year after year, all I saw was more Lego!” Guy Grimsley, Consultant

In recognition of the launch of our new Kids pratice we have all been reflecting on our favourite kids brands and what makes them resonate so powerfully. Our selections prompted many of us to reflect nostalgically on our own childhoods and how the brands in question remain such a potent trigger for other related memories. Here are two of our personal anecdotes;

“I would have to say Marvel Comics. As a kid growing up and with a sketch book as the baby sitter I would Marvel at the exploits of Marvel’s vast array of Superheros, trying to imitate the illustrations myself. Simpler and more innocent times… I can still see nothing wrong with tackling the evils of the world with over developed pectoral muscles and ‘Y’ fronts worn on the outside of tights! Stan Lee and his collection of artistic ‘magicians’ helped me define right and wrong from a very early age.”  Guy Chalkley, Senior Designer

“Either Brio or Jukka. Being a Finn I should probably prefer Jukka to Swedish Brio but both are manufacturers of brilliantly crafted wooden toys. We had both in my house when I was growing up and I bent, bashed and bullied the toys almost to the point of destruction. Now as an adult I keep the wooden models on my living room shelf because they’re just beautiful objects. What I really love about them is that, whether I was aware of it at the time or not, they hark back to a Scandinavian world where design, childhood and craftsmanship are celebrated and respected like commandments. For once, they still do make them like they used to…” Alan Morrison, Consultant