(Product) Launching a Child’s Toy (Product) Launching a Child’s Toy

Scenario

We were introduced to a start-up company that had spent the previous 12 months designing and redesigning a new toy aimed at kids aged between five and twelve. Now that the toy and the design were finalised, our objective was to ultimately prove to retailers and distributors that the price point and product value were aligned so that they would adopt the product into their own retail outlets. To do so, we needed to create interest, illustrate the experience of playing with the toy, and direct interested parties to an eCommerce platform where they could buy the product.

The start-up had a brand (logo, name, product names) but no other assets. There was no marketing plan, no social media effort and limited footage or media that could be used in promotions.

Our Proposal

The first thing we needed to complete was to create the eCommerce platform and ensure that the user experience on the website was positive and memorable, and in line with the brand values. We also needed to make sure that it would be technically capable of handling large volumes of orders at any given time. Having worked with the client to get the website to a point of going public, we implemented a drop-ship facility which integrated with their accounting software. This not only helped with their reporting, but also saved them an immense amount of overheads in managing orders.

We then worked on creating and generating social media profiles for the brand, and implemented an advertising program to grow their audience. Additionally, we created several promotions to roll out over the first six months to help with audience growth and interest.

Given the lack of assets we had to work with, we organised a publicity event which allowed us to create a library of media assets including still shots, video testimonials, and user demonstrations which helped us to communicate the value to our audience on social media in particular.

As the profile of the brand started to grow, a number of distributors and retailers both domestically and internationally started showing interest. We put together a marketing kit for these companies to demonstrate how our client was planning on growing the brand over the next 12 months.

The Outcome

Within the first nine months, the client had won two domestic retailers, an international retailer, and three international distributors, and had been invited to four other toy fairs to meet with potential carriers. The social media audience across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok had gone from zero to above 5000 in this time, and average daily website traffic was above 12,500.

Additionally, we were able to then provide all other partners with content and media that we had created over the previous nine months to allow them to have their marketing efforts get underway without delay.

Given that this start-up had spent considerable investment on getting to the “launch” phase, the marketing budget was tight, but through lateral thinking and utilising existing relationships, we were able to get the new venture up and running and in front of the right people.