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| 1968.11.26 Watertown NY Daily Times |
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| 1968.11.26 Watertown NY Daily Times "How a Toy is Born" Article |
HOW A TOY IS BORN
City Toy Counters Raided by Shoppers, As Big Toymaker Designs Items for '69
by G. Robert Farmer
Staff Writer of The Times
Scores of Watertown residents with Christmas club checks firmly in hand have already braved the toy counters of local stores, which are piled high with a myriad of toys of all shapes and sizes, dolls which walk, chew, giggle, and roll over, and games, some of which are aimed for play only in the dark. Customers may come home with a bewildered feeling that only aspirin can cure.
And it probably won't improve that feeling to know that at one toy company alone some 350 persons already are busily engaged in design and are working hard to get the "bugs" out of toys that will jam the counters and start cash registers to singing in the weeks before Christmas, 1969 - that's right, 1969 - and beyond into 1970.
Some Watertown stores have had raids on their toy counters already as shoppers, perhaps spurred by the preseason tastes of winter, have been buying early.
One large "discount" type department store manager said that we "are selling lots of toys" with, as usual, TV-advertised toys being in the biggest demand. Also, the recent snow storms probably spurred sale of sleds and; toboggans even though a thaw took away nearly all the accumulation.
"The old standbys such as games and indoor activity items are in demand," he said.
Education Pays
Another local firm, which experiences heavy catalog sales at this time, pointed out that "we are being asked for the more educational toys" adding that early sales and "heavy lay-a-ways" were making the picture extremely optimistic.
"Money seems to be no object," the store manager said, "as long as something can be learned from the toy. Toy buyers are more sophisticated and consequently such items as small computers and sending and receiving radio sets are in demand." Also, the girls are looking for "things they can make themselves," such as handicraft kits.
"Items associated with war have suffered a large decline," early catalog sales indicate, the manager said, noting, with other Watertown stores, that the big toy push will start Thanksgiving weekend.
"Sales are about two weeks ahead of last year," he concluded.
Another store official at a shopping center store said that there are four fewer shopping days than last season and said this may have triggered early spurts. He also noted that lay-a-ways have been heavy during the past two weeks.
Toymakers Planning
How do the toymakers prepare for the annual splurge?
They have already forgotten about Christmas, 1968, and are well advanced into planning those items which will be piled up on the toy counters a year from now.
Such a toy firm is the largest manufacturer in the industry - Mattel, Inc.
Mattel, a 23-year-old firm based in Hawthorne, Calif., became the first toy company in history to top $100,000,000 in sales (in 1965). The company, piloted by Elliott Handler, now chairman of the board, had sales of $150,000,000 last year and a spokesman for the firm told The Times that "Mattel certainly does expect this year's business to set records."
The president of Mattel is Mr. Handler's wife, Mrs. Ruth Handler, and the two were the developers of the famed Barbie doll (who this year talks as well as poses) which got the company off and running. The company has a number of plants in California, one in New Jersey and manufacturing operations in West Germany, Hong Kong. Canada, Taiwan, England and Mexico. What do these far-flung operations turn out?
Weird Ones, Too
Such names as Liddle Kiddles (a string of miniature dolls a couple inches high), Baby Small Walk, Sister Small Talk, Tippee Toes, Mini Dragons, Kooky Kakes and Tog'ls, Strange Change (the weirdest toy in the stable in which plastic capsules are visibly transformed into fossil-like shapes and reptiles) are money in the bank to a big toy-maker.
To add to your Christmas day headache the firm also produces Bath-House Brass called Toobas, Brassoons and Flooglehorns that appear as if they were made of parts of plumbing and all of which with proper humming will produce "music."
The Sears, Roebuck company in its annual book bonanza for wide-eyed children - the Christmas catalog -is heavy as usual with dolls, toys which lean to the space age, and auto race sets, which far outnumber trains) (even with the new N-gauge of mini-trains pushing their way into the picture), as well as many old standbys.
While the boys may have their Major Matt Mason, an astronaut for which space age vehicles, space firebolts, Astro Tracs with oversize wheels for tough terrain, and Cat tracs can be purchased, and his stern competitor, GI Joe, the girls, at least those not hooked on Barbie, still have their dolls to "mother." One creation - Baby First Step - now chats while walking along, and Tippee Toes, which is displayed prominently at four city stores surveyed at four different prices is a 17-inch doll which moves her legs like a toddler learning to walk, and will push a playhorse or ride a tricycle.
While such miniatures as Liddle Kiddles have pushed their way into the picture, Cliff Jacobs, Mattel vice president for market planning, feels that while "all of the miniature dolls do have a great deal of the spotlight, the larger dolls are a major part of the business. I doubt that there will ever be a time when the baby doll won't be the most popular doll of all."
Testing Toys
Thousands of children participate in testing for toymakers, including Mattel, each year. Rose Heyen, market research testing supervisor for Mattel, noted that when a girl plays with a baby doll she usually assumes the role of mother and almost as often the child puts this doll in a play situation which reflects her own environment.
Mattel tests dolls for "playability"- can they be accepted as real, is the doll comfortable to hold, is the hair combable, do the girls like her? Specially designed playrooms are utilized complete with one-way mirrors and microphones to determine how well a doll is likely to go over long before it reaches a Watertown store counter.
One instance, Miss Heyen said, brought laughter to the testers as a five-year-old started searching the special room and asking for her coffee cup because she wouldn't dream of taking care of her "baby" until she had downed her wake-up brew.
Also, the testing children have exhibited the inconsistencies of real motherhood. Many times there have been scenes of total rage immediately followed by subdued "mommy" and cooing endearments for the baby after the doll refused to drink her bottle.
The age groups which seem to prefer the tiny dolls (Kiddles from Mattel; Heide from another manufacturer, etc.) is from 3 to 10, according to Vic Cole, market research director. Liddle Kiddles were Chairman Handler's concept and were derived after some doodling at his desk.
Designing Toys
Mr. Handler called on the research and design department to come up with a model, a mockup Kiddle and the story of these dolls is a typical design story of nearly every toy developed by major firms in this country. After the mockup is completed it goes to the costing department and costs are determined. A series of reviews then are held with marketing and top management. Then the industrial design group makes sketches, manufacture design takes over and collaborates with tooling and engineering men who work with actual configurations of each part of the toy. Then the packaging department steps in (and the package is extremely important as more and more stores are set up like grocery super-markets).
Now, handmade models are prepared and child-tested to see if the toy is actually feasible and, more important, to see if children have fun with it.
When Baby First Step, a large walking doll, was initially tested her panties kept falling down. A six-year old in the "bugged" testing-room asked her companion, "I wonder why they don't sew them to the dress?" This was done.
After the testing comes worldwide manufacture.
Later firms get thousands of letters and Mattel has files filled with suggestions as well as praise for such educational items as "See N Say toys."
As one executive said: "It is very heartwarming and one of the many advantages of being in the toy business."
The business is booming, getting into full swing just now, and for such firms as Mattel it is the old story- "it's not the idea, it's what you do with it" that pays off.
So back to your aspirin, you toy hunters - Christmas is only a few weeks away and already the bustling plants of the toymakers have dead-aim on your pocketbook for Christmas, 1969.
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