Some interesting figures to counter misconceptions

In a few lines, here are figures from professional reports that help to better understand the state of the current toy market in France as well as the place and strategy of LEGO.

Over the first 8 months of 2012, the toy market in France was negative at -4% in value and -8% by volume. Where the Action Figures (or action figures) is in sharp decline with a decrease of 27% of the turnover generated compared to 2011, the construction games market (incorporating LEGO) is up 18% over the same period.

In the market of Action Figures, only the Spider-Man licenses (+ 380% with the help of the film), Power Rangers (+ 696% thanks to the return of the license via Power Rangers Samurai), Pokemon (stable), Avengers and Batman are doing well .

Regarding the Friends range, LEGO communicates a few figures: The LEGO brand is considered mixed until the age of 5 via Duplo. After this milestone, only 14% of female customers acquired to the cause. This is why LEGO flooded the media with advertisements in 2012 in order to create notoriety around this new range as quickly as possible. LEGO believes that the potential of this range is at least equivalent to that of the City range over the 5-8 year range.

During the period from January to June 2012, LEGO is part of the Top 10 Advertisers in France with € 4.856.000 of invested budget (launch of the Friends range) and is in third place behind the two giants Mattel (€ 9.858.000) and Hasbro (€ 7.179.000). MEGA Brands is not present in this ranking, but the press relations manager I met at NYCC 2012 confirmed to me that the group would be more present in 2013 to highlight its licenses (WoW, Halo, Skylanders, Power Rangers Samurai).

The advertising budget allocated by LEGO over the same period in 2011 was € 3.162.000, i.e. an increase of 53.6% in 2012. For comparison, Playmobil invested 1.194.000 € in 2012, reducing its budget by 7.1% compared to 2011.

TV advertising represents 82.8% of the total advertising investments made over the first six months of 2012, all brands combined. 11.1% of the sums were invested on the internet, and cinema, radio and the print media share the rest.
The biggest advertising investors in 2011 were Hasbro, Mattel and Giochi Preziosi (Gormiti).

No reliable information for the moment concerning the licenses for 2012, but as an example, know that in 2011 the Top 3 consisted of Beyblade, Cars and Hello Kitty.

In the ranking game of the most sold licenses on the toy market and carried by a film we find Cars (2011), Spider-Man (2007), Star Wars (2011), Toy Story (2010) and Ratatouille (2008).

Regarding distribution channels, a few figures: Between 2009 and 2011 the market share of supermarkets / hypermarkets increased by only 1%, where the pdm of specialized brands increased by 7%. The biggest increase is to the credit of online merchants with + 47% pdm in 3 years.

Regarding the sale of collectible products in sachets, it is a huge market: Products under 5 € represent 40% of the volumes sold in France thanks to a price adapted to the children's budget and to impulse purchases. By way of reference, the PetShop brand launched in France in 2005 has already offered more than 2000 different references with the success that we know. Enough to whet the appetite of LEGO, Playmobil or MEGA Brands with their figurines in sachets in this segment.