Driving Play Value
By Nancy Zwiers
I define play value as the amount of time a child spends playing with a toy relative to its price. Delivering play value is our industry’s reason-for-being, but we don’t have standardized ways of measuring our success—or failure.
Recently, my company, Funosophy, partnered with the Michael Cohen Group, a prominent New York-based research firm to field a study to measure our industry’s progress in launching toys that inspire extended play.
Compared to our first study in 2011, this new study shows we have made significant progress in the last decade. That said, there is room for improvement. While the percent of unused toys declined from 42% to 32%, it’s frankly concerning that 32% of toys being unused does not lead to parents’ perceptions of toys as a strong value.
What can we do to enhance the play value of the toys we make?
With online reviews growing for toys across the spectrum, where parents weigh in on the play value of the toy post-purchase, our mandate to improve play value is more important than ever!
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