What's your appTITUDE?

When we wrote The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook, we decided to include a glossary of common words used in the industry. We were not trying to compete with Merriam Webster but just alert our readers to corporate speak and "buzzwords" to avoid potentially "embarrassing semantic ruptures" in future encounters. The toy world is not unique with specialized jargon. Virtually every business has nomenclature that might be quite foreign to "outsiders" unfamiliar with an industry's own lingua franca.

As we plan to do our e-Handbook, we will update the glossary. The industry has grown since we released our original work and so to has the vernacular to describe its products, its commerce, and its consumers. Nothing underscores this more than the hot use of "app" now applied to the latest genre of playthings. In fact, if Toy Fair 2012 is any indication, very key industry words like play may morph to plapp, toy to tapp and game to gapp.

If you were at Javits, you had to be sleepwalking not to notice all the apps and the quick word-smithing to emphasize app domination of many new products. There were add-on products now called appcessories. Mattel juiced up lovable Barbie and classic Hot Wheels with functionality apps. F-P sees baby learning colors, numbers, animals, etc. from an Apptivity Monkey (bib not included?). There was a karaoke app and the Disney Appclix that "lets easy photo transfer even by children". Some of Hasbro Games classics like Life, Monopoly, and Battleship are getting zAPPed for new play experiences.

But my award for emphasizing new-age plapp goes to Spinmaster who coined a real brand catching name, Appfinity and the uses it across a number of items like Applingz, Appfishing, Appdrive, Appblaster, and Appmates. Apps are everywhere!

I appologize if you think I am ignoring all the other thousands of conventional playthings on display at the Javits bazaar. So many applications on new playthings may merely be a show of the industry's reaction to technology so as not to diminish its reputation as a fad/fashion business and a business that does not want "to be caught with its trends down"! Look around...electronic devices are in everyones' hands, and they are hardly a passing fad. I saw a stat that claimed 52 percent of Americans 18 years and older spend 4 to 9 hours daily on such devices. It is doubtful that teens and under are far behind the digital fixation. This is the time for the industry to have applications apptached to plappthings. I just wonder if large numbers of our playful consumers will respond in big numbers and buy all the products at APPS R Us or in the tapps and gapps aisles at Target or Walmart? We'll know more by next NYC Toy Fair! Right?

Creative Factor @ Javits

Richard Levy and I once again accepted the TIA invitation to be on its Creative Factor program, the opening day of New York Toy Fair, Sunday 2-12. We had to compete with whiz-bang toys, engrossing games, inflatable novelties, and assorted costumed creatures. Unlike past duo performances, we were split into separate one hour sessions of lively talk and Q and A. Our goal was to give the type of helpful information we scribed into our orginal book,  The Toy and Game Inventors Handbook*.   At our respective sessions, it was gratifying to see a full house of inventors, marketers, lawyers who had traversed the lower bowels of the Javits' corridors to reach us.

This year's topic was contract negotiations. We presented from perspectives established for the Handbook of Mr. Outside (RCL) and Mr. Inside (ROW). Those perspectives we each gained from our thirty plus years of licensing and developing  toy and game product.

Richard spun his always entertaining, anecdotal experiences bookended by Starbird in the past to the just announced return of Furby in 2012  There is little to contest in his 10 steps to negotiating licensing agreements. This wisdom has guided him through a myriad of successes enjoyed throughout his career. So everyone listened up!

Here are Richard's 10 Commandments to contract negotiation he shared with an overarching statement that "at the end of the day, deal-making is about relationships, not transactions".

1.  Negotiate yourself. No one will do it better than you and no one has more to gain or lose. It is advisable to have a lawyer as your backup before you ink your signature.
2.  Only use lawyers experienced with toy industry contracts.
3. Two plus two is never four. Exceptions always outnumber rules.
4.  Never fear to negotiate. Never negotiate out of fear.
5.  If it ain't on the stage, it ain't on the stage. Confirm every conversation with a memorandum to avoid misunderstandings.
6. Keep agreements short and to the point. The length of the contract is inversely proportional to the amount of business.
7.  Do not accept standard contracts. Treat boilerplate terms as variable. Nothing is as temporary as that which is called permanent.
8.  When in doubt, ask. Asking dumb questions is easier than correcting dumb mistakes.
9.  Thou shalt not committee. Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough people discuss it.
10.  Have fun. The moment a negotiation feels uncomfortable, I pick up my marbles and go home.

My workshop detailed the paper trail inventors encounter showing a new idea. It all begins with a record of the initial meeting with a company rep.

•  The Tip: Don't show a lot, focus on the best and make it a WOW! event. What acquisitions rep can leave a WOW at the gate?  And once the concept goes internal, it will live or die on its own merits and the enthusiasm of a product champion to fit the concept into the company's marketing plan.

•  The Tip: A company's internal process often needs at least 30-45 days for a concept to be stamped as viable; longer than that, Go for the Option! 
Mr. Inside continued on detailing the POT (post option time) to K (code letter for Contract). The talk walked through the business points essential in a K without a focus on all the legalese that shrouds contractual terms and conditions and creates ump-teen page licensee contracts. (The Toy and Game Handbook covers this topic in Chapter 9, Molding the Deal.)

Richard and I enjoy the opportunity to share what we can with inventors. Good that the TIA and the Creative Factor gave us the forum to do that. As we see it, the more inventors know about the business side to complement their creative side, the better prepared they will be to get fair and equitable terms.

Last we saw of our audience, they were rushing to the Javits' aisles, hopefully better prepared to join the fray!

*We are now working on an updated edition which will soon be in e-book form. Watch for news of its release when available on this blog.