3 questions to Peter Hollo, Ph — International Consultants

Peter Hollo is a dedicated expert in the toy industry, that much is certain. With his Company Ph — International Consultants He advises the big players in the industry, both nationally and internationally. He is regarded as a thought leader, puppet master and as someone who is not afraid to say things by name. In addition to his business consultancy, he is also the editor of TOYS & GAMES Report and responsible for the DACH region for the world's most important industry association for international licensing, Licensing International. We asked him about three topics:

1) Peter, what are the top 3 toy trends right now in your opinion?

Trend 1: Sustainable toys

By now, everyone should have internalized it: Things cannot continue as before. That is why sustainability is certainly much more than “just” a trend. Sustainability is a must. Even though I have a lot of sympathy for this, it's not just about fishing plastic out of the sea and turning it into new products that end up in the trash again because extracting the individual raw materials may be very expensive and/or also very harmful to the environment. The aim is to install a genuine “circular economy” in toys, which starts with the product design, uses the appropriate raw materials and ensures that the product and its components are then easily fragmented and recyclable.

Technically, all of this is possible, but will mean that certain products will (have to) disappear or (much) become more expensive. Whether consumers (can) accept this is another matter. Because, on the one hand, the number of consumers will have to calculate very precisely — due to inflation, new laws, regulations and regulations, and on the other hand, the old trade saying “on the shelf, that's where morality ends.” It doesn't matter which socially desirable answers you have given in surveys, when it comes to your own money, the price still counts for the end consumer.

Trend 2: Licensed toys

Even today, the toy industry is neither imaginable nor calculated without licensed products. This is where the big sales and earnings are made. And that's true for industry and trade. This trend will continue in the very long term.

It will be exciting to see where the new licensing topics come from and via which channels. And it will be exciting to see what effect the writers' and actors' strike in Hollywood will have here. There is still a lot in the pipeline, but projects are already being postponed or canceled. What happens in the medium term if we no longer get a supply of Hollywood blockbusters and their secondary and third-party marketing, spin-offs, sequels and prequels? Because up to now, despite all the prophecies of doom, people believed dead live longer. The spice must flow! Without a value chain that starts in California, the selection on our shelves will become alarmingly thin. Neither linear television and certainly not on-demand television and streaming (which is largely a secondary marketing of cinema content) can change this in the long term. And even hopefuls such as gaming perform very well in this area, but not well enough.

Trend 3: toys for boys and girls

He didn't, did he?! Did he?! Yes, he said the bad J word and the bad M word. At the latest after the truly gigantic success of the first Barbie live-action film, it's safe to say that the world can be pink! Because more pink and more girly than Barbie, that just doesn't work! Once again, we are reminded of one very impressive thing: it is still the mass of consumers who decide and not a loudly demanding self-proclaimed moral elite. An end to the joyless gender-neutral Puritanism! Which, by the way, does not work significantly outside the niche.

There can be boys' stuff and girls' stuff again. And boys can play with girls' stuff and girls can play with boys' stuff. And anyone who identifies themselves in a completely different way too! This goes completely naturally and apart from any ideology, outside of toxic masculinity and long-outdated female role models. Strong kids don't need ideological guidelines, no matter how well-intentioned. They need the freedom to engage with what triggers them individually. And market research has known this for a long time: boys and girls are addressed in the mass (and our entire system lives on) by very different content and very different game principles, colors and the like. Let us live this freedom! Prohibitions of thought and speech must be removed. And that works quite well, even without discrimination.

2) How do trends actually arise?

There are two types of trends. The trend initiated with a great deal of money, a great deal of market research, a great deal of preparation and a great deal of advertising power: it comes from companies. And it sometimes works or it doesn't work. After all, it is not that easy to calculate consumers. Because long-term attitudes and convictions, the spirit of the times or the applicable dos and don'ts are still accompanied by short-term, unforeseeable events and micro-trends, which often have huge effects on the development of a genuine large-scale trend.

And there is the spontaneous trend, the trend among the majority of people, where the majority of people suddenly decide that certain elastic bands are great or something that you can let circle between your fingers. This is perhaps the most democratic trend. Unpredictable, suddenly there, tremendously lucrative for first-movers and ruin again with the first reorder in Asia.

3) What is your personal favorite trend of the last 10 years?

My favorite trend is actually sustainability. That a lot of people in the industry have realized that when children's eyes have stopped glowing, we produce calculated waste. And that we have to do something significant about this. The days of greenwashing as a mere marketing argument are history for most players. And that's a good thing.

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