Episode #96: The California Law to Empower Gender Neutral Toys
Listen Now
Tap Play Below or Listen On iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts
On October 11th, toy social channels exploded with the news that California Law would force toy retailers to fill their shelves with gender neutral toys by 2024. While partially true, the law is much more nuanced than the poppy articles make it seem.
In this episode of The Toy Coach Podcast, we dive into the new California Law and try our best to decipher what it truly means for toy retailers like Walmart, Target, and Toys R Us. Will this mean the end to the pink/blue divide still seen at many toy stores?
If you’ve been wondering about the details of this California Law and want to sit in on a though piece around what it could mean for the future of toy design at retail, then pop your earbuds in, and tap play my friend. You’re in for a treat.
When I traveled to Portugal, I found this beautiful toy store where the products were organized by age grade. It' was so clever and clean! Check out a few photos below.
-
Click here to view - AB-1084 Gender neutral retail departments.
Check out The Global Kidizens on Instagram here.
Check Out How You Can Support The Global Kidizens on Kickstarter by clicking here.
-
[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to making it in the toy industry episode number 96.
[00:00:04] Well, 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 thetoycoach.com. Today's episode is all about the new California law that requires retail stores with a toy department to have a gender neutral section for toys. Yup. If you haven't heard it before, you're hearing it here. Now the law was announced on October 11th, 2021. So for today's topic, we're going to get into it. First, we are going to start by defining what the new California law is. You know, I love my definitions.
[00:01:01] We'll get into how it will affect toy retailers, manufacturers, and just some predictions of how the design of heavily gendered toy brands may or may not have to evolve to fit in with this new law. We're going to have a conversation about how gender neutral is defined in this new law. And toward the end of this episode, I'm going to share it with you. A conversation that I actually had inside of my toy creators academy group coaching session last week. Where we dove in to the legal definition and potential retail interpretation of the term, gender neutral. So it's going to be a really interesting conversation today. Thank you for joining me. Let's dive right in.
[00:01:51] To start, I want to talk about what this new law is. Now, this is actually a bill listed as AB 108 for gender neutral retail departments. So on October 11th, I posted an Instagram story, plain texts that said California law will require gender neutral toy section, posted it on my Instagram. And I have got to say to people, I have never seen my awesome toy Instagrammers, more lively. You were all liking this post up in the comments, wanting to talk about it. A friend Heather Sparx was shocked saying, what? About time. Captain V Art said, I'm kind of amazed that some places still try to gender toys. Geek.kawaii said plushies and video games have always been gender neutral, come on!
[00:02:49] There were just so many great supportive celebratory comments and it put a huge smile on my face to see that the community stood behind this so it's clear to me that this is a hot button issue for many people, but what does this law actually mean? The headline that I shared was similar to headlines that you'll find online and it can be interpreted in many different ways. California law will require gender neutral toys sections, but what kinds of toy sections, where will they require them? Is it only toys? Well, that's what we're going to start diving into. So the bill states that starting in 2024, California retailers that have over 500 employees within the state and sell toys will be required to have a gender neutral section for their toys. Now, the section can be in addition to usual girls and boy Isles or in replacement of.
[00:03:51] Now the gender neutral section can be labeled at any discretion of the retailer, meaning they can call it whatever non-gender specific term that they want. And within this section, they must have a reasonable mix of items that they sell regardless of how those products were traditionally marketed. So I'm assuming that to mean items that they typically sell in their store must be mixed in this area, regardless of if they were boy items or girl items in the past. Now, according to the law toy sellers have to show a reasonable selection of toys that can be played with by people of any gender. And if companies do not comply with the law, they will face a $250 fine for the first defense and a $500 fine for subsequent offenses.
[00:04:44] Okay I know with a company that has at least 500 employees, that's not a lot of money, especially to retailers, you know, of that size, but the subsequent offenses could mean for every item that is not in the correct place. Potentially maybe there could be some weight behind that. Now, what you may not know is that the law actually applies not only to toys, but also to childcare accessories, like bottles, pacifiers, sleep accessories, and more the text of the law states that its purpose is to help buyers spot differences in similar products by having them physically closer to each other in the store. For example, I guess we could look at it as a pink Lego set versus a blue Lego set, having them in the same space on the shelf, or maybe a fashion doll and a similarly shaped action figure. Now, while diving into this part of the new law, I started to think that perhaps it could be a play toward price regulation of boy versus girl products. Right.
[00:05:52] I'm sure you guys have all heard of the pink tax before. But, does the pink tax really apply to toys? That's what I started asking myself because before diving into research for this episode, I thought the pink tax primarily affected adult women with things like razors, hair products, and clothing. But according to bankrate.com a study, performed by the New York city department of consumer affairs found that girls toys, quote, unquote cost an average of two to 13% more than boys toys that are the same, other than their color. So in October of 2020, there was a pink tax ban that went into effect in New York. Now, if it went into effect on October of 2020, likely it was in the works much longer than that. And it was considered a real landmark move toward gender equality. Now, this law that we're talking about today is a California law and then the story of the pink tax ban and the average cost research is all New York based data, but could this move this gender neutral toy store law be California's attempt to have consumers kind of self-regulate these disproportionate pricing across genders.
[00:07:23] And what I mean by that, is their goal to get boy and girl items together in a gender neutral themed or labeled space so that consumers can make more informed decisions and see the quality differences. If there aren't any and see the price differences. Maybe just a thought, but just, I love diving into where these things came from and why they might have come to be. Okay. So that is what the law is for the most part. So let's dive into how it will affect toy retailers. And first and foremost, The size of retailers we're looking at, they have to have 500 employees in California, so it's not like they can have a hundred employees in California and then employees elsewhere and this law applies. When I read the law, which I will link in the show notes so head over to thetoycoach.com/96 to grab that link.
[00:08:24] But it specifically states that it's 500 employees within the state of California. So first and foremost, that means it's going to affect stores like Walmart, target, toys r us, which is back. These stores may have to repog or replanogram items to meet the new law. Now, if you were just listening and you were like, whoa, what happened? Azhelle's normally very slow with these things. She said, repog I don't know what she's talking about. Well, I've got you, don't worry. POG is just like a short industry term for planogram. And a planogram is essentially planned layout and positioning of where products should be placed on a shelf. Just imagine a floor plan for a house, but instead of it being for the layout of the house top view, it's for the layout of a wall. And it's kind of like a side view, so elevation view. So toy buyers planograms or pog products to determine how they're going to be displayed at retail and buyers are usually assigned a single section in a store.
[00:09:29] So for example, a buyer could be responsible for the arts and crafts section at Walmart. That's the only section that they focus on buying product and planograming product for. Let's say you're a toy company trying to sell a product to that buyer at Walmart. You might find that the buyer won't really touch product that could or should potentially live in other buyers sections out of respect. For example, a doodle fashion doll could be in the craft section or the doll section, but the buyers for both those sections are actually two different people. If the doll section buyer let's say were to find out that the craft section buyer already had that doll craft product, she likely, or he wouldn't touch it, or if the doll section buyer saw the product first, like maybe your doll section buyer saw your craft aisle product first. But they just think that that product would be a better fit or makes more sense in the craft section.
[00:10:32] They still might not touch it. So as not to encroach on Category of product that another buyer is responsible for. But okay, I'm digressing I'm going into a whole, whole lesson, but I want to get back to the California law. With this new California law they're essentially creating force creating a brand new section of toy stores that we might have to have buyers manage. It's the gender neutral section. So now buyers, and the owners of these retail stores are either going to need to decide whether they're okay, just kind of all helping fill this gender neutral section as a group and duplicating products between other sections in order to fill that space. And then share responsibility of that section or they'll assign one buyer to manage just the gender neutral section or maybe the gender neutral section and another section in the store.
[00:11:33] And then that buyer who's in charge of the gender neutral section will need to find and buy product exclusively for that section. Now, honestly, I think it's a great thing. I mean, other than the issue of finding the retail space, figuring out what product you're going to take out, what product you're going to swap in. Figuring out if you're going to duplicate product in the store and just have it look like a hodgepodge, like clearance, stylish section of your store, or if you're going to really have the product be redesigned. You know, I really believe that this gender neutral requirement, this new section requirement could create an opportunity for a nice visual break for shoppers in toy store. And thus provide a way for toy retailers to freshen up their space.
[00:12:22] The same way that we kind of blindly scroll through apps like Instagram and Facebook and marketers are all about stopping the scroll in that same way. You're trying to catch the gaze of consumers when they make their way into your physical retail store and with everything being so one way, so sorted by gender and then brand. It can be really hard to create a visually intriguing part of a toy store that kind of stands out from everything else. So this could create an opportunity within the turmoil. Since we have to now create these gender neutral sections. So, what does all this mean for toy manufacturers?
[00:13:08] Well, what's really cool is it could mean that toy manufacturers begin to preemptively develop gender neutral lines to fill in the coming need of retailers. So likely they won't be developing completely new product. But they will probably be developing. New packaging and new branding. Now, while the California law seems to allow a retailer to simply mixed traditional girl and boy products in a new gender neutral space, we can assume that some toy retailers may not love how that visually affects the flow of their toy store. And when they see that hodgepodge clearance style, look in this gender neutral section, they may lean toward buying product, a statically developed with this gender neutral section in mind. So this could make opportunity for toy manufacturers who can quickly turn around small gender neutral programs, likely comprised of the top selling products from their toy and girl lines.
[00:14:25] This could actually create opportunity for them to acquire shelf space that they previously didn't have an opportunity to acquire. Okay. Well, now that we've gone over what this law is and what it could mean for toy retailers and manufacturers in California. I want to share with you some topics brought up in my latest group coaching session with my toy creators academy students last week. So the question that came up in our call was this, what defines something as gender neutral, specifically in this law? And I have to say it's a little confusing because the law doesn't specifically define gender neutral. The law defines the term childcare item. It defines the term children and the term toy, but it does not define what gender neutral is.
[00:15:23] So overall, the law explains how retailers should fill this gender neutral section. It seems that retailers are expected to place traditionally boys and girls toys together in the same area to let consumers decide which ones they want to buy. Thus making the new section, gender neutral in theory. How will a store be called out for not abiding by this law? What will define not abiding by this law? And since there was really no clear definition, A, the size that this gender neutral section needed to be. And B what gender neutral actually is in the law. Of course, I just looked it up cause I love a good definition.
[00:16:10] So the Oxford dictionary defines gender neutral as this, suitable for aplicable to, or common to both male and female genders. So you could theoretically have an all pink gender neutral aisle, and you could argue that the product is suitable for and applicable to both genders. I mean, who is to really say that all pink aisle isn't suitable. I mean, the product itself is still suitable and applicable. You can definitely see boys playing with girls toys. I mean, this is the whole reason this law came into existence, right? Because there really is no dividing line. There really shouldn't be a dividing line. But in my opinion, it seems to me that the word common is that word that is going to help define and separate what will and won't fall within the guidelines. What is common? I'm assuming that is similar to what is traditionally accepted, but again, it is very vague.
[00:17:23] Now a lot of this new California law is left up to the toy seller's discretion. Seemingly seems like they can put whatever signage they want for their gender neutral section, but it just has to not be deemed a boys or girls section specifically. So the selection of toys it's also up to the retailer, even the size of the area is up to the seller. It just has to be quote reasonable. So how is the toy aisle going to change? This is what my students and I really dove into beyond this gender neutral discussion. What is going to happen to our toy Isles if this, gender neutral law expands? If it's more than just a section, right?
[00:18:12] If it becomes an aisle, if it becomes the entire department, what will happen.
[00:18:17] So one of the things that I've just always thought would be beautiful is if our toys were defined by vibe by mood and thus by color. And what if the gender neutral section became the rainbow section and the rainbow section in the sense of the vibe that each color emits and the child gets to shop by what vibe they have. And that's when my student Maya Gill chimed in and said, yes, rainbow products are super popular right now. Rainbow themes in toys. She seen it everywhere. Like LOL surprises in entire rainbow hi doll collection. And then when we think about LGBTQ communities, Lego created like an everyone is awesome Lego set for pride month to represent all of the colors of LGBTQA. I mean rainbow products have just grown exploded in popularity. UNO also released like a pride addiction with a rainbow themed, deck, and it's not just toy brands that are trying to be more inclusive even without California's law.
[00:19:36] Target stores have actually not had gender toy areas since 2015, they took out the signs and now let parents and kids pick what toys they like from themselves. They sort it by category, by brand still. And toys R us, which is back actually removed gender toy Isles in 2013. And Walmart also doesn't use gendered signage for toys. As we talked about earlier, is toy signage enough? What else are retailers going to be required to do to meet this law? And this conversation with my students just sparked a bunch of things.
[00:20:19] One of the points that was brought up was, well, why don't they organize toy Isles by age or by play pattern? And I mean, play pattern is such a tricky one because often with toys, we're trying so hard to build out the marketing elements of each product. So we have multiple play patterns in one product, but age is something that I've seen in a toy store recently when I was traveling abroad. I believe I was in Portugal at the time, and I ran into this beautiful toy store. I will throw up a couple of images from the toy store in the show notes, so you could check it out, but the toy store was divided by age and it was very clean and it did make for a very easy shop, but it was a totally different experience.
[00:21:09] So that was the conversation that I dove into with my students this past week. And we're just all very excited to see how this unfolds, not just with this new law, but it's starting a whole new conversation, a whole new precedent. And that is really what's exciting. It's inspiring people to think about a new way that we look at our toy retail space and, and I have to say when shopability is made easier in store. That's the only way you're going to be able to compete with online.
[00:21:42] Now let's stop to think about the opportunity that this could all create for existing gender neutral toy brands. And up and coming gender neutral toy brands, aside from the conversation about rainbow packaging, aside from how things will be organized in stores, we can also surmise that there might be an opportunity here for these brands, because as I said, toy retailers are going to have to Repub their spaces and they may not love the outcome of utilizing what they already buy. So they may be interested in looking ahead for future.
[00:22:22] Feature seasons and buying specific product to fill this new required gender neutral space. And if these products do well, we could surmise that toy stores will roll out gender neutral sections in other branches of their stores outside of California. And thus affecting the toy industry as a whole. Now let's think about the potential opportunity for gender neutral brands, either existing gender neutral brands or up and coming gender neutral brands. All of these gender neutral toys were intentionally created to be gender neutral. Others just are, I mean, take a look at Play-Doh for example.
[00:23:05] This Hasbro line has been enjoyed by kids of any gender since 1956. And it's typically not marketed toward a specific gender. In 2012, easy bake oven released a more neutrally colored line of ovens, after a 13 year old girl wrote and petitioned them because her four year old brother wanted one, but she didn't think he would like the pink and purple that was available. In 2019 Mattel launched a line of gender neutral dolls called creatable world. And this doll encourages all kinds of plays, self identifying play. From the beginning was the purpose and the benefit of playing with dolls for all kids, not just girls.
[00:23:52] Now, other toys on the market, try to encourage girls to feel comfortable doing activities that they weren't encouraged to do in the past, like GoldieBlox, which makes engineering toys geared toward girls. Than other companies, even ones like crate and barrel are making more neutrally colored doll houses that kids of any gender can enjoy. So boys who were once made fun of for playing with doll houses can actually enjoy and feel comfortable playing with the product and playing in that play pattern of the product.
[00:24:27] Before I jump into the summary of today's episode, I'd like to take a quick break and give a listener, shout out to Misty. Castaneta. Yetta Misty is a graduate of toy craters academy, but the big reason I want to give her a shout out today is to support her.
[00:24:45] Congratulations to Misty for launching her Kickstarter for her toy product, the Global Kitizens Misty. If you want to teach your children, empathy and culture check out the Global Kitizens. They are a group of diverse characters from around the world that are inspiring young children to discover different cultures, embrace others and encourage belonging. Misty's Kickstarter campaign launched just a day ago. So if you would like to check out the dolls and maybe get one for yourself. I will leave a link in the show notes to both, I hope you support our fellow toy creators. Congratulations, Misty, and best of luck.
[00:25:28] Okay. Let's get into a conclusion of what we learned today about the new law in California that requires toy stores to make gender neutral toys. That it's for stores with 500 or more employees that they have to have a designated section that features toys that commonly were traditionally boys or girls toys kind of mixed together, or can have new products in it as well. But the size of that space is up for interpretation. And what gender neutral means seems to be up for interpretation. They can name that space, whatever they like. And I told you my opinions on how it might affect retailers and the formation of buyers and the spaces they're assigned to, and then toy manufacturers, how it will affect them. What they might be doing preemptively to get ready for this change assuming more changes may come down the line in other states or bigger changes for California. Then we dove into a conversation that I had with my toy creators academy students. If you want to learn more about that program, head over to toycreatorsacademy.com because we meet every Thursday for 12 weeks and we dive into conversations like this and so many more.
[00:26:47] Okay toy people, here is your action item for next week. I want you to find a gender neutral toy brand or to a product. And I want you to go into the Facebook community and share it posted on the wall. I want to see it. I want us to build a little bit of a library, a compendium, and talk about it and see how we all feel about the gender neutral products. And just start to get more familiar with ones that are out there that maybe we already know about, but maybe we'll find some from this exercise that we've never seen before. To join the Facebook community, if you haven't joined already, head over to thetoycoach.com/96, and I will put the link there so you can join me and share some of the gender neutral toy products and brands that you find.
[00:27:35] As always, thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I know your time is valuable and that there are a ton of podcasts out there. So it means the world to me that you tune into this one. Until next week, I'll see you later toy people.
-
🎓Learn more about how you can develop and pitch your toy idea with Toy Creators Academy® by clicking here to visit toycreatorsacademy.com and join the waitlist.