This Dr. Is Always In!

Visits to a Dr. are often not pleasant: something ails, there's an injury, a general malaise. This is not true during any encounters with a unique Dr. who specializes in fun times, happy hours, and things playful. O.K., she is not an M.D. or even a D.D.S., but her unsurpassed knowledge and experience with playthings makes her a prominent figure in our world of toys and games. Stevanne Auerbach has certainly earned the highly respected and special title of Dr. Toy.

I became aware of Dr. Toy's expertise forty year ago in my early days with the Milton Bradley Company. Stevanne Auerbach was chosen to review the Company's product line for games with intrinsically educational as well as entertaining value. The selection was printed in a brochure for circulation to educators and general consumers. That piece was important to Milton Bradley since the Company prided itself on marketing games that were both fun and "Keys to Learning."

Dr. Toy's stature as an expert on play and playthings has grown immeasurably since those early MB days. Our industry boasts of thousands of new playthings launched each year, the majority targeting children. Dr. Toy knows which are safe, challenging, entertaining, and have suitable play value for specific ages. Much of that information has been online since 1995. The site provides company links, parent links, and posts by industry professionals who offer helpful insights on how the industry creates new playthings. Specific products are cited as recipients of the coveted "Dr. Toy's Best Products Awards". Over her long service to the industry, she has recognized over 5000 products be they classics, green, seasonal, or best values for the price. Her publications are must reads for anyone active in the toy and game business.

The devotion and efforts Dr. Toy has directed toward the industry as author, creator, advocate, and promotor of play makes her a real industry treasure. Visits to the Dr's website should be regular and frequent rather than the annual encounters with Drs. practicing more serious specialties.

www.stevanneauerbach.com

www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2011

www.drtoy.com/

Wish Upon a Star

The popular kiddie tale tells of Geppetto seeking the magical powers of a star with his wish. He knew he wanted a boy and with the infusion of some fairy dust and design alterations to iron out kinks and imperfections, he got his beloved Pinocchio. Toy and game companies use a form of wishing to make their dreams come true. They do not look to the heavens and wish for successful new products. They enlist the creative powers of professional toy and game inventors.

My partner, Leslie, and I attended a new conference segment of the terrific Chitag weekend where over twenty marketers presented their 2013 "wish lists" to inventors. During my own years in toy and game acquisition, the Company had changing views about circulating wish lists of annual new product desires .

At first, there was a rather open ended, less directed view to let external creative genius be free to invent without constraints. Hopefully, a new concept would come "out of left field", " be uniquely innovative, excite through whole new designs, and result in mega sales.

This "wish-less" approach morphed into more marketing based wish lists to guide inventor thinking. Wishes were defined for each product category with general specs so new concepts fit price points, themes, media licenses, demographics, and what was hot in pop culture. New concepts would then fit more tidily into Sales and Marketing plans for the retail climate. (BTW, even in this approach, the door was always left open to a big WOW! not hinted on any wish list!)

Today, I'm a firm wish list believer. Companies know best what they can develop, market, and sell in the current tech driven, highly competitive, retail constrained marketplace. When companies give inventors helpful guidelines for current wishes, they will get product concepts suited to their market strengths. That will be a whole lot more productive than using Geppetto's path of pinning wishes on a distant star. (And that's no fib!)