Talkin' Bout Kid Nation

Brandweek, Feb 14, 2000 by T.L. Stanley

Within the next few weeks, before spring has fully sprung, Southern California-based toy manufacturer Bandai will start dispatching teams of fleet-footed jump ropers to highly kid-trafficked areas around the country for demonstrations, clinics and competitions.

The grassroots effort is intended to tap quickly into a renewed interest in a simple sidewalk product--the lowly jump rope--that today's media-overloaded and tech-proficient kids have decided is once again cool. Never mind that they don't even know the words to "Double Dutch Bus."

It's just one example, toy industry executives say, of how kids still have the ultimate power to start and direct trends. They can be the first to discover a product sitting quietly, unadvertised, on a specialty retail shelf, or can decide to play with a mini-skateboard keychain or milk cap, and turn it into a runaway hit. While they're still impressionable, today's kids are confident enough in their choices to create their own tidal waves in the marketplace. It's up to the marketers, then, to respond.

"It's the kid nation syndrome-- kids have an unbelievable ability to drive word-of-mouth," said Robin Sayetta, vp-licensing at Discovery Communications. "That phenomenon has always happened, and the Web is fueling it even more now. There's a kid zeitgeist where something connects with them, and can take on a life of its own."

Where years ago, kids in neighboring states or towns didn't necessarily know each others' new tastes or passions, the Web has created a global playground where the chatter about the latest and the coolest is communicated with lightning speed.

"If a kid gets a cool new toy, he'll go online and talk about it. That absolutely can start a groundswell," said Marc Rosenberg, vp-promotions at Hasbro's Tiger division." And when it's a groundswell, it's 10 times bigger than anything marketers could create."

The key to riding that wave, industry executives and watchers say is catching it early.

"We noticed that jump roping was percolating," Bandai's evp and chief operating officer Brian Goldner said." A lot of double dutch competitions started springing up." Even kids in Japan, often considered the ultimate trendsetters, have snapped up a half-million Bandai jump ropes in the past two months.

Of course, the product had to be updated because, "these kids aren't going to go for a $2 basic jump rope," Goldner said. "They want it to remind them of other categories they participate in," like dancing and extreme sports.

Bandai this week will unveil jump ropes with nylon and metal roller bearings, designed to help kids increase their skill level quickly. With the product, and upcoming cross-country tours, execs said they will capitalize on lessons from their Yomega yo-yo line, which has grown into a $100 million business. Bandai launched Yomega with in-store boutiques and promotions, sending teams of kids to hundreds of schools, retailers and parks to whip up excitement. A national contest culminated in a championship in Hawaii last year.

The initial interest, however, came from kids. Though yo-yos have been a perennial item on store shelves for decades, Bandai's informal research alerted executives to a renewed fascination.

"We spent a lot of time looking at what was going on in local stores, mom and pops, at skateboard parks and at the beach," Goldner said. "The observational research is the most telling."

Updating the product was crucial, Goldner said, hence X-Brain and other yo-yos were loaded with special features like jazzy graphics and auto return. "You had to show [kids] the product benefit," he said. "These yo-yos allowed them to do more tricks and learn more skills," Maintenance kits and accessories, retail "pro shops," and "pro-spinner" reward cards offering trade-ups for merchandise, stoked the fire.

At some point, yo-yos likely will return to basics, "but we'll continue to introduce new-product news that lets kids trade up in price point and skill level" Goldner said. "It keeps moving kids through the line and keeps them interested."

A boatload of luck is involved in a kid-generated phenomenon, said Charlotte Stuyvenberg, svp-worldwide marketing for Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast division, makers of the wildly popular Pokemon card games. But managing the groundswell requires skill.

"The big challenge becomes, 'What's next?'" she said. "You need to keep giving them new offerings, new products and site-based activities."

For Pokemon, and Wizards' seminal product, Magic: The Gathering, the company organized grassroots play-days, clinics, trading seminars, online sampling and live demos. "There's nothing like getting the product in their hands, because it's the experience that makes the impression," Stuyvenberg said. Executives at X Concepts, Escondido, Calif., know that refreshing a hit product line is vital. The company has broadened its initial line of mini-skateboards into snowboards, wakeboards and micro-skateboards. The products were dictated by kids, as was the fingerboard craze, which X Concepts leaped into in late '98 after its founder, Peter Asher, noticed his 12-year-old son, Steven, had spent a rainy day fashioning a mini-skateboard from cardboard. Separately, kids were playing with plastic mini-skateboard keychains purchased at surf shops, using their fingers to mimic tricks done on regular boards.