Posted September 2, 2009
My friend, noted toy industry observer and consultant Richard Gottlieb, is predicting sales in the 4th quarter to be up by 1%. Let’s hope so. Toys are too important for sales to be in continued decline. At some point sales will be most likely be up, particularly as he notes, in light of such dismal sales last year at this time. As toy inventors and as an industry we need to create incredible, fresh, interesting, must-have products. We need to be responsible to our consumer constituency and deliver the extraordinary, regularly and reliably. We need to get the word out about what toys are, and why they are important. We need to tell the story of Frank Lloyd Wright and the set of blocks that inspired his revolutionary architectural style, the story of the Wright Brothers and the toy airplane they were given as children by their father that was the seed of their interest in and becoming pioneers of powered flight. That is the power of toys to change the world. We need to get the word out about what the toy industry is doing that is newsworthy, from the philanthropy of the Toy Industry Association and companies such as Hasbro, on down to companies like Lund and Company and our work with Big Brothers and Big Sisters for the last 21 years. We need to spread the gospel of toys, that toys are known to inspire adults to change the world through their life’s work. Toys allow exploration of this very real (not virtual) world we inhabit during our lives. Playing with toys, we explore action-reaction, gravity and other physical laws, the understanding of which are necessary for a lifetime of navigating a world filled with peril. Playing with toys, we develop the ability to imagine and to create. Toys are important tools of development, as well as agents of change. Play matters. So for many reasons, let's hope sales are up again in the 4th quarter. Buy toys, they are an investment in all of our futures.
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