Learning To Be Objective About Your GREAT Toy Product Ideas

Apr 9

As a professional working in the toy industry day in and day out, you start to acknowledge that ideas are a dime a dozen. You become so good at conceptualizing new ideas, that you don’t hold on to any, one idea too tightly. But every once in a while, an idea comes along that is SO good, that you stop and say, “Wait, hold up. I’m a toy genius.” And you put together that pitch deck and that product sample so proudly and you just cannot wait to show it to your boss or your retail buyer.

But when you do, they don’t get it. They don’t see the value and you’re pretty sure they’re questioning why you’re in this industry in the first place.

It happens. It happens to us all.

It’s even happened to me!

Sometimes it’s hard to see past our own ego and pride to recognize when a toy or game idea just isn’t’ that good at all.

So what can you do to make sure that doesn’t happen to you?

You need to learn to put your toy ideas through an objective vetting process. These 3 methods of objectively vetting your toy ideas, will help remove your ego from your toy idea so you can clearly see it from the perspective of a parent, a buyer, an executive, or even both!

Method #1: Pretend Your Idea, Is Not Your Own

The very first method is designed to help you visualize your product idea coming from your competitor. The purpose of this is to allow you to review this idea from the same standards that you put on to your competition.

To implement this method, first, you have to identify what category your toy or game idea is in. Then you have to identify the leader in that same category. Your competitor. And your job is now to create a visual rendering of your toy invention or idea as if it came from your competitor. You can use a photo editing software like Photoshop to do this.

You won't be showing anyone this rendering of course, this is for your eyes only. Now that you are visualizing your concept coming from your competitor, you’ll have a whole new perspective on it. Look at this rendering you created and really ask yourself how do you feel about this new product if it were to come from your competitor? Would you be impressed? Would you expect better? More? Would you feel beat wondering why you didn’t have that Idea first? Would you be embarrassed for them? This digital rendering in which you’re pretending your idea is not your own, allows you to get out of your own head. It helps you measure your idea against the best of the best in an objective way.

Method #2: Idea Influence

Many creatives notice this phenomenon in design where the validity of any toy pitch/presentation or concept shown is directly affected by the ones shown before it. If you work in design or if you’ve pitched a design portfolio you may have seen this phenomenon occur firsthand. Any idea pitched following a really bad idea, has a tendency to seem not so bad, and any idea pitched after a really good idea seems to have just a little less shine. That’s why smart designers curate their portfolios strategically to mitigate design influence. You do that by putting breather concepts between your biggest most impressive works. And using idea influence on yourself is a clever way to vet your ideas to see if you have a truly amazing toy idea, or one that’s just OK, or maybe one that's really, not so great. To start, you’ll need to curate a list of several existing toy products that are really exceptional, and in the same category as your innovation. Then you want to find a friend or family member to really pitch all of these toy ideas plus your innovation to you as if you are a toy manufacturer seeking an innovative new product. The order at which they pitch is also important. The toys pitched to you should get better and better, with yours being pitched last. What you’ll notice is having a few great toy ideas pitched to you ahead of your own, is going to influence how you see your own idea. You’ll naturally compare and contrast them

The final method to objectively vetting your toy ideas is…

Method #3: Walk AN AISLE In Their Shoes.

Objectively vetting your toy ideas method #3 is to walk an aisle in their shoes. The “Their” refers to anyone to who you are attempting to sell your product or idea to. It could be your target consumer; it could be the toy company or a retail buyer. In order to walk in “their” shoes, you need to understand their expectations and motivations each of these different potential customers has when considering investing their money in buying your toy or game product.

To get even clearer on who “their” is, you can break it down into three parts.

Consumers are the people who are putting down money for your toy or game at retail. Their primary focus is VALUE.
Retail buyers are the corporate professionals who choose what toys or games go into retail stores. Their primary focus is GROWTH.
Toy companies or manufacturers have leaders and executives to who you are likely pitching your ideas when you intend to license them. They are the most challenging to cater to because they have so many different focuses. But primarily their focus is online EXPANSION and customer ACQUISITION. Analyzing your toy from these different perspectives is a vetting exercise that could spark new toy feature ideas and could help you build out the talking points of your pitch.