Word: toying
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...toy titans have helped stimulate that growth by becoming more marketing-minded. They now invent fanciful personalities for their toys, design cartoon shows to promote them and produce endless follow-up products to keep children coming back for more. The companies aim to make their toys into celebrities so that children will accept no substitutes. The strategy is working. Youngsters now pick out their playthings with the fussiness of a young professional shopping for his or her first Saab. "They are smart kids growing up very fast," says Polly Hallett, marketing director for Fisher- Price toys...
Only a few years ago, when toy companies were smaller, their financial health was notoriously erratic because they rode up and down with the latest fads. Example: Rubik's Cube, which lasted only one season, 1981-82. Now the toy firms want to grow large enough so that they can take part in several trends at once and get a smoother ride. Hasbro, Mattel and Coleco, the No. 3 toymaker, will account for about 35% of this year's industry revenues, compared with less than 15% five years ago. But these big firms now compete with a manic rivalry that...
Aside from the malodorous one, He-Man may encounter his toughest rivals in the toy stores, where this year he will face the red-hot Thundercats, from New York City-based LJN Toys, and Sectaurs, a strain of insect-like warriors made by Coleco. To give He-Man some help, Mattel has introduced his shapely sister, She-Ra, which the company hopes will get girls interested in action figures...
...toys are warriors. The success of Kenner's cuddly Care Bears has prompted a toymaking rush to stuffed animals. The friskiest new critters in sales are Pound Puppies, a breed of soft, sad-eyed and bewrinkled hounds packaged in kennel-shaped carrying cases. They come in 80 different patterns of brown, tan, gray and white, and are meant to be "adopted," like Cabbage Patch Kids. The youngster who gets one can send to the manufacturer, Tonka, for a dog tag and ownership papers. Minnesota-based Tonka, which is diversifying from its traditional line of sturdy toy trucks, expects to sell...
After picking up the conservative political winds, the company in 1982 brought back G.I. Joe, which had been discontinued four years earlier. The new Joe, downsized from 11 1/2 in. to 3 3/4 in., rang up revenues of $132 million last year. While still a conventional toy, the fighting man has a battalion of colleagues and a battery of weapons. The biggest accessory is his aircraft carrier, a 7 1/2-ft.-long behemoth that carries 100 Joes and sells...