Episode #170: A Review of the Future Forecast Report From The Insights Family
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Data is a precious thing. Data allows companies to make growth projections, develop products based on consumer needs, and write messages based on consumer desires. But where do you go to find precious data? Well, in the toy industry, there are several research and analytics companies that will gather that data all year long, offering trend reports and future cast predictions much like the one we’ll be reviewing in today’s podcast episode. In today’s podcast episode I will review a 2023 future forecast provided by The Insights Family. This report has 12 recommendations for the year based on the agency’s research.
Today’s episode is about an incredible market research agency called The Insights Family. They specialize in research on parents, kids, and families. Each year they survey more than 500,000 people and then amass the data on a filterable online portal. The agency was founded in 2017, and has quickly become a leader in the field of market research for kids, parents, and families.
By the end of this episode you’ll learn all about what The Insights Family is, what they do, and how they can help toy industry entrepreneurs, professionals, and creatives. You will also learn how you can work with The Insights Family to get astute insights that could help your toy industry business or invention.
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This episode is brought to you by www.thetoycoach.com
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to Making it in the Toy Industry, episode number 170.
[00:00:05] Hey there, toy people. Azhelle Wade here and welcome back to another episode of the Toy Coach Podcast, making it in the Toy Industry. This is a weekly podcast brought to you by the toy coach.com. Today's episode is about market research and it's inspired by a bootcamp that I'm putting on right now called The Great Toy and Game Idea of Bootcamp. In this bootcamp, we are working to visualize, validate, and make a vow to develop your toy and game ideas. The bootcamp is happening right now. It's live, it's five days. We're going through it in our Facebook group.
[00:00:53] Day one, we learned all about how to use AI to create renderings of our toy concepts and the Facebook group. Filled with some really cool and kind of creepy renderings of some fun toy ideas. And our lesson for today in the bootcamp is gonna be around surveying your market and doing market research. So because of that, I thought it would be a great time to talk about market research in general. So today's episode is about a market research agency called the Insights Family, who sent me a future cast report for their 2023 Future Cast, which is so fun to do, a review like this once we've actually started the year that was being predicted cuz we can see how things are panning out according to the prediction.
[00:01:39] Now the Insights family specializes in research on parents, kids, and families. Every year they survey more than 500,000 people and they put the data in an online portal. The agency was founded in 2017 and it's quickly becoming a leader in the field of market research for kids, parents, and families. So in this episode you're gonna learn what the insights family is, what they do, and how they can help you if you're developing a toy business or if you work at a toy company.
[00:02:08] And in this episode, I'm going to go over their really helpful 2023 future forecast. The report has 12 recommendations for the year based on the agency's research. You are also gonna learn how you can work with the insights family to get. That could help your toy business or your invention or how you're gonna target your customers.
[00:02:28] So first up, what is the insights family? Now as mentioned, the Insights Family is a market research agency that focuses on parents, kids, families. Every year they provide over 50 million data points that can give you powerful knowledge about what families are buying. While the companies located in Manchester, in the uk, they currently operate in 22 countries, including the us, uk, Canada, and China.
[00:02:54] So there are several things that make the Insights family a good option. First, their mission is to simply report the data and be unbiased. One of their clients, Warner Brothers, spoke to another benefit of their unique service saying this quote, historically, it has been quite difficult to get data linked to Childrens ages 12 plus. However, with their portal offering all groups between three to 18, this previous challenge has now been overcome. So if you've been having trouble finding data for that age group, this could be a good solution for you.
[00:03:26] Now the Insights Family online platform is called Aqua, which stands for all questions answered. It lets users sort the immense amount of information and data with filters that allow you to view, find, and analyze the information that you actually need now. Plus, in addition to the data from their own market research, the platform also provides news and insights from other sources, including news websites, social media.
[00:03:54] Shopping sites. Their mission is to help their clients get the best ROI possible with their platform. Now, their online platform has some pretty cool features. One, there are all sorts of different views based on geography. So if you only wanna see data from the Americas, there's a view for that. You can also set up your own custom views. Two, there are six different data solutions in the online platform, like the 360 Media Mix Compass, which gives you insights into how kids are consuming media and what media they're consuming. The DATAGRAM is a data tool designed specifically for retail.
[00:04:33] It gives information about shopping, spending, and licensing trends. Now. Third, there are also six different analytical tools that include an online snapshot, a side by side view that lets you compare two sets of data and a question time feature that allows you to cross reference two data sets to find new insights.
[00:04:54] Now they've got different solutions. If you're thinking like, oh, this is interesting, I wanna try this out. What is the pricing? What do they offer? Well, they've got three different solutions to choose from. They've got Kid Insights, which focuses on data from children between the ages of three and 18.
[00:05:09] They've got parent insights, which is all about the data from parents across the globe, and then they've got family Insights, which includes information. Families if you subscribe to both Kid and Parent Insights, you also just get family Insights. Now, each year the Insights family surveys more than 469,000 children and 228,000 parents about all sorts of topics to get the information that you wanna know.
[00:05:36] So the sheer amount of data really helps them talk about not only the past and the present, but also predict the. Now that we know what the Insights Family is, let's get into that recap of their 2023 Future Forecast. And now that we're a few months into 2023, this is gonna be a little bit of a test to see how they did.
[00:05:54] Now each year, the Insights Family puts out a report full of predictions for the oncoming year, their 2023 report. is a must read even though we're in 2023, but it's a must read for anyone who wants to see what trends might be coming up for the rest of this year for kids and families. Now, if you've listened to episode number one of this podcast, then you know that step three of unlocking your toy ideas is to evaluate the current trend.
[00:06:20] And this report can definitely help you do that. So if you wanna listen to that episode, go to the toy coach.com/one and listen to that episode. After you're done with this one, put those pieces together and I'm sure you'll be off to a great start. Now for 2023, the Insides family has some predictions.
[00:06:38] Based on their research that I found pretty interesting. According to the Insights family, gaming is the top hobby for kids and teens around the globe. So a few of their 2023 predictions do seem centered around gaming. Now, first, they predict that gaming is coming to Main Street But because they are British, they did, they called it High Street.
[00:07:00] They predict that in-person gaming spaces and immersive gaming experiences will become even more popular. They're already starting to pop up in malls and shopping centers around the country. I have definitely seen this as I go to some of the bigger malls in my area, there are just VR playgrounds essentially in these malls popping up like crazy.
[00:07:24] For example, sandbox vr. Offers an immersive full body VR experience with friends and they have brick and mortar locations and it's like laser tag times 10. And they've opened locations in 11 US states with more to come soon, as well as locations in Europe, Asia, and Canada. Also in the gaming sphere the insights family predict that brands will create more gamified communities to help users and retain, to help users and customers remain engaged with their brand while also socializing online gamification could be as simple as giving app users a reward for using the app every day. You know, we know people that are pretty religious about keeping their dual lingo or Headspace app streak going strong, so I'm sure they're taking cues from that. But it can also include social aspects as well, and that's where the insight family focuses on in the report.
[00:08:18] So, for example, Games can offer the ability to capture a video and share to social media and the opportunity for in-app commentary to keep users engaging with the brand and product. I remember back in the day when Twitter was first getting going, the biggest use case.
[00:08:38] Early on. People would watch shows live, tweet about it live, have conversations live while they were partaking in a, in a, the same. So, you know, fast forward we're still doing that, but how can we expand it beyond TV and tweets and we can have it integrated into our app. Not only that, I 100% agree in the marketing world, community has become more important than ever, and with the growth and the advancement of AI technology community and that human factor is going to be the main differentiator as we move forward. So insights family point for you. I agree with that Future. Prediction as we're here in 2023 and already seeing it happen.
[00:09:21] Now, gaming is becoming so popular that Insights family also believes that sports brands need to find new ways to engage with eSports in order to connect with kids and teens. So each year kids spend less and less time being active with in-person sports. The time only decreases by a few minutes annually, but those.
[00:09:41] Add up to hours over the long term. Kids also spend less time watching TV shows. And what is making up the rest of that time? Well, gaming the experts at the Insights family believe that there is a huge opportunity to capture the attention of kids and teens interested in sports through gaming and technology.
[00:10:02] They also foresee subscription brands collaborating to make comprehensive platforms that will encompass. Let's go to a next prediction that they have. In this future CAST report, the Insights family also foresees subscription. Brands Col collaborating to make more comprehensive platforms that will encompass multiple subscriptions to help people avoid subscription fatigue.
[00:10:26] This will give brands a wider reach and can give families more cost effective options according to research from the insights family, parents are more concerned than. ever with cost and value of a purchase. And we are already seeing that with streaming sites, especially Amazon. They're the pros at making partnerships so that you get Amazon Prime and you also get access to their Amazon Prime videos, but you also can get HBO o So we're already seeing it in the subscription model, so we're already seeing it in the streaming category, so it'll be interesting to see how it converts to other areas related to toys and.
[00:11:00] Another prediction is that NFTs will become more mainstream. They believe that brands can find ways to work with them and bring them more into everyday life. They see this trend potentially starting in the APAC region where crypto is most likely to be used by teens, and where teams seem to have the most concerns about money according to research done by the insights family.
[00:11:22] So I'm curious to see how that one plays out because I know we've had the biggest N F T burst, and we'll see how that one plays. Now, as you may have seen from some of my podcast episodes, there are already so many incredible kidpreneurs in the toy industry. If you wanna hear more about those kidpreneurs, check them out@thetoycoach.com slash one 50. There, you'll find an interview I did with Miam Manza Dallas, a little girl who invented a hit toy at five years old, or check out my interview with Zoe oli@thetoycoach.com slash 1 42.
[00:11:54] Zoe's a successful preneur who created a toy line at age seven. The reason I bring up these entrepreneurial kids is because of the next finding from the Insights Family Future Forecast and the Family Insights portion of their business predicted that this trend of business savvy kids will only continue to grow.
[00:12:14] However, they predict that most Kidpreneurs will be making their money. content creation. Now, part of this stems from the popularity of making content from gaming, and the other part stems from the fact that kids these days just wanna be financially independent and earn their own money according to insights family data.
[00:12:35] They also believe that immersion in the digital world will continue in education. Even though a lot of kids are back in the classroom, digital tools in schools will just become more important. With this comes a prediction about trustworthy information, right?
[00:12:51] So one of the major challenges with so much digital information is that kids need to learn how to identify what is fact. What is opinion, and what is simp. Untrue. So the Insights family believes there's an opportunity for someone to create a space for trusted information online. And I'm looking at this, this is going back to community, like building a trusted, reliable space for people to connect.
[00:13:19] One major prediction is that younger people will start to use social media as a way to gain information more than Google. Now that is a scary thought. Now, the Insights family believes short form videos on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are gonna take over as a primary way of finding information.
[00:13:39] Another kind of ground shaking prediction is that more families will return to linear tv. As opposed to on demand platforms like Netflix and Hulu. So linear TV just means that shows that are on at a scheduled time, like cable TV now, they believe this change will be caused by rising expenses of all these different streaming sites and unpopular changes to streaming platforms.
[00:14:03] Now, I don't know if I agree with people going back so much to linear TV because we are such an immediate gratification society, I can't see us waiting for a specific time for a show to start. However, I think this goes back to their earlier prediction of subscription bundles and how streaming platforms will either lose customers if they don't offer subscription bundles.
[00:14:28] And my husband and I talk about this all the time about. . We're paying so many streaming platforms that essentially we're just paying for cable. Like it all just comes background. Now we're just paying for on-demand. Cable is what's happening because there's so many streaming platforms.
[00:14:41] Almost every show is on a streaming platform. So the best thing that they can do to avoid subscription fatigue, in my opinion, for streaming is just partner, you know, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix bundle. Get it all together and essentially we are back at cable. Okay, , let's continue back with the future forecast.
[00:14:58] Now the insights family predicts that kids and families will continue the trend of supporting businesses that have values of sustainability and environmental awareness. Now, one contributing factor to this prediction is another finding that kids are influencing household purchases more and more,
[00:15:18] and many young people cared deeply about those issues. I actually have a friend with a 10 year old daughter who was very upset back a couple months ago when the weather just wasn't feeling like winter. It wasn't feeling seasonal, and she was really concerned about global warming and her mom had to calm her down.
[00:15:37] Now over half of teens and tweens surveyed by the Insights family said, environmentally products and taking care of our environment is important to them. It is important that a brand that they use is eco-friendly. Well there you have it. That's my review of the Insights Family Future Forecast.
[00:15:54] That they sent out, it was really extensive. I just gave you the highlights. So let me tell you how you can work with them. If you wanna choose to work with them, maybe go to their website. Maybe you can get a future forecast sent to you for next year. So the Insights family is definitely something they can help any toy business because their data focuses specifically on kids and.
[00:16:16] So they've received raving testimonials from brands they've worked with like Mattel, Coca-Cola, bbc, and Paramount. In addition to their online platform, they also have a team that works on custom projects and a strategy team that can help with workshops. So you can get reports specifically about toys and games, as well as personalized monthly and quarterly reports that contain specific data that would be useful to.
[00:16:42] Now this platform is useful in so many areas of business, including marketing, advertising, licensing, sales, and more. You can use this data to help you build strategies, plan and track marketing campaigns, choose your subject lines for blog posts and YouTube videos, price products, plan content, so much more.
[00:17:01] So if you wanna learn. Go to their website. It's a great resource. You'll find case studies with examples of how brands have successfully used their data. You'll find more information on the specific tools that they offer, and information about the company's values and how they work with their clients.
[00:17:17] Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, you can visit the insights family.com/contact or email them at hello at the insights family dot.
[00:17:28] Now, if you are a newish toy creator and you're developing an idea, And you already know, as amazing as the Insights family is, you're like, Azhelle, that is gonna be out of my budget, ma'am. Well, I've got you. Don't worry. You should really check out. The Great Toy and Game Idea Bootcamp registration is currently closed for the bootcamp.
[00:17:52] However, we are going to be offering a recording of the trainings of the bootcamp. Here's why I think you should check out the bootcamp day three, which is today of the bootcamp. We are gonna be focused on how to perform market research when you aren't quite ready to invest in an incredible resource like the Insights family or N P D data.
[00:18:14] These resources are amazing, but for a small fry, when you're first starting out, you don't have sales. Sometimes you can't get there. You can't invest in those things. So how do you perform that research on your own?
[00:18:26] If you're interested in hearing about the training that I'm gonna be giving today about how to do that market research on your own, I'm gonna tell you to do something super simple. I want you to shoot me an email, send me an email, let me know you're interested, because as soon as the recordings are ready for this training, which they will be by the end of this week, I will send you the information so you can access them. Now, before we jump into our summary of today's episode, we're gonna give a shout out to Miss Annie's books. Miss Annie, you have been super active in our great toy and game idea bootcamp in the Facebook group. I love your little koala that you rendered. He's so cute. You have so many different versions that were cute, but I love the one with a big, big, big, fluffy ear.
[00:19:15] So shout out to you. Thank you for being in the bootcamp and being an active member of the community.
[00:19:20] Now, I know you've also got a plush named Kobe, so I just wanna give a shout out to Kobe's story time, plush Tales. Thank you so much for being a part of the group A.
[00:19:31] Okay, let's get into the quick summary of what we learned today. In today's episode, we learned that the Insights Family is a market research agency that focuses solely on parents, families, and kids. They provide priceless information to people in all different industries, including the toy industry. As I told you all about some of their amazing predictions for 2023, like brands collaborating to make more comprehensive subscription platforms or gaming coming to High Street, aka Main Street for us with more in-person gaming experiences.
[00:20:02] Now finally, I told you how you can contact the Insights family to start working with them again. Just visit the insights family.com/contact or email them at hello@theinsightsfamily.com. Your action item for next week is to check out the Insight Family website and think of three ways that this amazing data could help your business.
[00:20:24] I want you to send me a message on Instagram and tell me what you came up with. I wanna hear the creative ways you think you could use this kind of data to better your business. You could tag me in this. Story, but I'm always on Instagram, so I would prefer you contact me there. Now, as always, thank you so much for spending this time with me today.
[00:20:43] I know your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there, so it truly means the world to me that you tune into this one. Until next week, I'll see you later. Toy people.
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