Bored With Her Toys

Toys . . . or Shoes?

But Sugar Snaps are not going to get 10-year-old Tiffany into the toy store. In a recent survey by Funosophy, 92 percent of boys 9 to 11 said they'd probably or definitely go to the toy aisle in a mass market store such as Target. Only 76 percent of girls said the same thing. Their first choice? Clothes, fashion accessories and shoes.

Unwilling to cede that market to the fashion industry, some toy companies are trying innovative approaches to toy design and development in the hope of creating more hits for girls over age 8. At Mattel, for example, the traditional barriers between the boy and girl sides of the business are coming down as the company seeks more opportunities for crossover toys.

"My colleagues and I talk about these things more regularly and more easily than we may have in the past," said Tim Kilpin, a senior executive in Mattel's boys division.

And at Seattle-based Cranium Inc., there simply is no girl or boy side of the business; it's all one unit. Of course, the eight-year-old gamemaker has the built-in advantage that games, like outdoor play and to some degree arts and crafts, is an area where there is already more overlap in the play patterns of boys and girls.

"We went in thinking we were going to make gender-neutral products," said Cranium co-founder Richard Tait, whose business card gives his title as Grand Poo-Bah.

But it can be hard to keep that philosophy going. When Cranium introduced a line of toys for younger kids at Toy Fair, its role-play masks for preschoolers came in four varieties: robots, aliens and bugs for boys and fun fairies for girls.

High-Tech Razzle-Dazzle

Perhaps nothing is generating ideas in the toy business like technology, which is allowing companies to abandon some of the old notions of what makes a boy toy or a girl toy in the first place. Zizzle, a new industry darling formed by two veteran toy executives, is following its alien-shape iZ speaker-system for iPods -- which was a hit last Christmas -- with a desktop music and light console called Zounds. Company executives were pushing it hard at Toy Fair as a product that will appeal to boys and girls equally.

"I think the line has blurred in a very significant way" between boy toys and girl toys, said Marc Rosenberg, chief marketing officer. "You know what this industry needs? It needs hit products."

One of the surest routes to a hit right now is through youth electronics, he said, which have "changed what people think of as toys."

Traditional toy retailers are eager for technological advances, too, because they broaden their audience. Gregory R. Staley, president and chief executive of KB Toys Inc., said the more technology morphs into toys, the more kids will turn into toy consumers.

"The real sweet spot for the industry is 2- to 7-year-olds. Anything that can extend that age is good for us," he said. Better yet if toymakers come up with a product, like iZ, that appeals to kids of all ages and of both sexes.

"You get a product like that, it's a home run," Staley said.

It has become so inexpensive to add interactivity, sound and liquid-crystal display screens that toymakers are adding these features to toys in droves. Anything with technology is "cooler" in the minds of kids, they say. The Amazing Amanda doll by Playmates Toys Inc. uses technology to make a doll so realistic that some toy bloggers have deemed it "creepy." But it's a talker in the toy industry and has raised the bar for other interactive products.

Mattel has added technology to traditional girl toys with products such as Pixel Chix, which uses the traditional nurturing play pattern in a purely technological environment. Little girls must take care of their Pixel Chix, who live as moving, responsive characters in little stackable cubes. And then there's the electronic Barbie diary, a clear effort to keep Barbie relevant to 9-year-olds.

For parents and toy experts who bemoan the advance of technology in toys, there is a counterbalancing trend in the industry that emphasizes free play, open-ended toys and old-fashioned fun. No batteries needed.

But for all the press these old-fashioned toys have gotten recently -- Radio Flyer wagons, old card games, Lincoln Logs, board games -- they remain a small slice of the ever-advancing industry. One can argue -- and people do -- whether all this technology is good for kids or is ruining their ability to think for themselves and use their imaginations. But toy executives deal with that criticism this way: If they don't chase the promise of technology, they risk another year with a 4 percent loss in sales, or worse.

In the process, it just may bring boys and girls together in the toy aisle.

"There's always been gender-neutral products in the areas of games and entertainment," said toy consultant Zwiers. "Now technology is bringing all of that to life."