Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1964)

chsracter licensing hasn't changed much, selling techniques have, and merchandisers were quick to demonstrate their products on tv or — better still — to use tv characters as models for their products. And the child market (especially toys) remains the Klondike of their business. To reach it, network merchandising divisions or their licensees unfailingly spread their efforts like a winning poker hand before the players that count: Sears Roebuck (both for retail and catalog sales), Woolworth's (as chain-store giants), AMC or Allied stores (for depanment-store distribution) and — although distributors are reluctant to admit it because of the concessions purportedly involved — leading discount houses, too. Buyers for such organizations, diamond-hard from their long professional exposure, are not an easy bunch to woo, still more difficult to win. (The typical toy buyer, even for dolls, is a "mature" male who takes his work seriously and who is always asking for "something new.") While most manufacturers conduct at least informal testing of their new products C'My kids think it"s great"'), there's no real way for pre-selecting a major seller from the outright dud. Says one pro in the field: "You don't really know — you never really know. It"s as exciting a business in that sense as the entertainment business, itself." Toys especially depend on an elusive something called "play-value." which roughly means "the amount of attention implicit in an item." Strong play value holds the child's attention, while a "flash" toy (like a wind-up rabbit) remains unchallengingly predictable and shortly monotonous. Actually, there's only one final test: the child, himself. NBC's Lunenfeld says that television has revolutionized toy purchasing in two ways: (1) "Tv-advertised toys are the ones that move — rapidly." (2) Tv-licensing procedures have automatically encouraged the centralization of toy pro duction into fewer, larger firms. This has occurred because tv advertising has notably shortened the time needed to introduce a new toy successfully, increased urgently the need for bigger advertising budgets and has even managed to erase the heretofore seasonal aspects both of toy manufacturing and of toy selling. Department store buyers, for example, formerly had committed their annual budgets by September, would only order an occasional "special" after that. Now, as late as mid-December they'll order anything strongly promoted on tv. And to fill such orders, manufacturers are as deeply in production in January as they used to be in June. Where, 10 years ago. there was a doll manufacturer or a producer of toy guns exclusively, there is today a giant like Louis Marx & Co. (output: possibly as much as 8 to 10 percent of the industry's total) or Mattel (a comparable sales gross: $96 milhon a year), with its doll division, toy gun division, etc. Consider the activity of Remco Industries, one of the larger manufacturers. Most of its S3. 25 million advertising budget is going into television this year, but not to support the "monster" fad that the company expects to ride. (Its dolls will duplicate characters both from CBS's The Mimsters and ABC's Addams Family.) In fact, according to The Sew York Times, "The company believes that the television shows themselves constitute a built-in advertising program. Remco figures that the Munsters will record some 982 million advertising impressions over a 52-week period and that the Addamses will ring up one billion viewer impressions." New Merchandising Trends Surging into newly stronger positions this year are several noticeable trends which, however obvious, nevertheless have predictive meaning: ABC's perennially popular 'Combat' (above) and its new 'Addams Family' (right) . . . ( 1 ) Merchandising has ceased to be "kid stuff in any sense of the word, is being extended so that tvlicensed products appeal to teenagers (as with lunchboxes). adults (casual wear) and also the well educated (books) — in short, consumers of all ages and many tastes. While many of these items don't depend so heavily on the enthusiastic personal association that a child, for instance, may obtain from owning a Terry Toon hand puppet, the pointof-purchase impulse that often cinches the sale remains a product i of tv-associated recognition. i (2) Toys and tots will probably, always deliver the most merchandis1 ing dollars, but diversification has I also introduced clothing lines. This i is most notable in boys' wear, which now abounds with such useful and i durable goods as tee shirts, sweat I shirts, jackets. Today's youngsters j to HJDct I 32 SPONSOR I.