By conducting an in-depth review of the great toys from ancient times to the present, youth–marketing expert Gene Del Vecchio reveals the six core qualities that help toys achieve blockbuster status:
• the toy’s unique satisfaction of children’s emotional needs
• the toy’s acceptance among parents and unique fulfillment of their needs
• the toy’s perfect alignment with significant historical events or social trends
• the toy’s ability to reinvent itself
• the toy’s employment of inspiring, playful marketing
• and, sometimes, the toy’s serendipitous rendezvous with powerful, random events
The Blockbuster Toy! How to Invent the Next BIG Thing also sheds light on the definition of what it means to be a toy in today’s world. From traditional toys, to foods, to multi-player online games, to the importance of story and Hollywood studio alliances, Del Vecchio casts a broad net and explains, in ways that marketers can learn from and interested readers will find amazingly insightful, how playthings become pop culture.
Readers will learn here the essence of a blockbuster toy and the various recent approaches used by Crayola, Disney, and other companies in choosing their products. Six chapters discuss blockbuster marketing strategies, all designed to help toy-industry professionals ignite the smiles that can make their careers.
About the Author
Gene Del Vecchio is a nationally recognized expert on youth marketing and is also the author of the Atticus Award-winning book Creating Ever-Cool: A Marketer’s Guide to a Kid’s Heart, published by Pelican. He has worked over twenty years with global, blue-chip companies such as Mattel and the Walt Disney Company. Prior to forming his own youth consulting firm over five years ago, he was a senior vice-president of planning and research at Ogilvy and Mather, where he established the agency’s worldwide philosophy of youth marketing. Mr. Del Vecchio has appeared on national television programs and in print in such respected publications as Advertising Age, Newsweek, and the New York Times.
BLOCKBUSTER TOY!
How to Invent the Next BIG Thing
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Marketing / General
By Gene Del Vecchio
256 pp. 5 1/2 x 8 1/2
6 tables 33 b/w photos 17 illustrations Index
ISBN: 9781589801226 hc