Tag Archives: Kidult

Chess sets and Transformers: The Movie ReAction figures, Hasbro is laying on a nostalgic treat for fans

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Having never been one to shy away from its adult fanbase or one to tread lightly around the kidult market of collectors and geek culture community, Hasbro is serving up a platter full of nostalgic fodder for followers of its generation-spanning Transformer franchise this season.

The geek culture outfit and pop culture licensing specialist, Super7 is celebrating the 35th anniversary of Transformers: The Movie with a special raft of Tranfsormers ReAction figures.

The Super7 team has become recognised for its ReAction brand, bringing nostalgia to the shelves of specialist retailers the world over as it taps into some of the best loved properties of yesteryear, and feeding a growing audience of kidult collectors.

The company’s latest look back now takes the shape of its Transformers ReAction Wave 4 collection, developed to celebrate a full 35 years since the release of the animated Transformers: The Movie. The exclusive toy line pays tribute to some of the most iconic characters and moments, including Hot Rod, King Starscream, Fallen Leader Optimus Prime, and – for the first time in 3.75-inch figure form – Galvatron.

The collection will be available from next month. The launch of the range coincides with Hasbro’s own anniversary celebrations for the cult classic, during which the toy maker will re-release the 1986 animated feature film to select US cinemas for two days only.

Presented by Fathom Events and Hasbro, The Transformers: The Movie 35th Anniversary will land in cinemas across the US on Sunday September 26th and Tuesday, September 28th, bringing its all-star cast including Judd Nelson of The Breakfast Club, and Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek fame back to the screen in their Autobot adventure.

Adam Biehl, SVP and GM, action brands at Hasbro, said: “We look forward to bringing families and fans back to the theatres for this milestone Transformer anniversary.

“With thanks to our Fathom partners, Autobots and Decepticons of all ages will be treated to a one of a kind movie experience celebrating this beloved animated film.”

But that’s not the only activity being stirred up around the classic Transformers property this season, as Hasbro is continuing to dish out the nostalgia fodder thanks to a new team up with the pop culture collectables outfit, Hero Collector.

Under the partnership, Hasbro is embarking on its first Kickstarter campaign to bring to life a new Transformers Chess Set, featuring 16 heroic Autobots and 16 villainous Decepticons, all modelled on the classic 1980s Generation One Transformers animated cartoon.

The sculpts each show the Transformers in their robot form and have been developed in collaboration with Hasbro, based on the original animation designs and animated series.

The Kickstarter launched on August 13th this year, and is scheduled to deliver in Q4 2022. A variety of backer gifts are planned for fans, including a Transformers pin badge, Transformers profile book, and exclusive Gen-1 chess pieces.

Fans can visit the Kickstarter page here.

A booming Enterprise | From Star Trek to The Beatles: How Eaglemoss is fuelling the kidult and pop culture market

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Now in its fourth decade serving the sci-fi and fantasy collector’s and collectables market, Eaglemoss has become an authority on the topic of pop culture and kidult sectors, supplying some of the most detailed models to be found on the scene today. But there’s a whole lot more to the company than Star Trek busts. Here, we catch up with head of Hero Collector at Eaglemoss, Ben Robinson to learn more about the company’s plans

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Eaglemoss is a cap with many feathers. A bow with many strings. A Trident with the pre-requisite number of prongs; that being, three. It is a triforce of the geek and pop culture scene, acting not only as a direct to consumer platform, but a fan subscription service, and a distributor to independent and mass retail channels across the UK.

If it’s high end collectables, comic books, licensed gifts, toys, and other consumer products all deeply rooted in the growing kidult and pop culture space that you want – be you a casual collector, an entrenched nerd, or a toy shop tapping into both of those – then Eaglemoss has to be on your list. In fact, it likely already is.

Established in 1975, Eaglemoss pre-empted the ‘kidult’ market by a decade or two, recognising early on, the power that many sci-fi and fantasy properties had to capture the imagination of generations to come and firmly establish itself as a leader in the collectables field. Since the publication of its first ‘partwork’, the business has been in a state of continued expansion, and today holds claim to having produced, marketed, and distributed more than 150 collections across more than 30 markets over five continents and in 13 different languages.

Spanning London, Paris, New York, Moscow, Sao Paolo, and Warsaw, Eaglemoss is well-placed to tap into the global ‘kidult’ and pop culture sector as its demands broaden to include more innovative and engaged consumer products. This year, for example, the company is tapping into the demand for pop culture-inspired advent calendars, an extension of the toy advent calendar trend that has been gaining momentum here in the UK over the last few years.

Here, we catch up with Ben Robinson, head of Hero Collector at Eaglemoss to discuss the company’s latest releases, its plans for the growing kidult market, and what the Eaglemoss name brings to a sector brimming with superfans.

Hello Ben, thank you for talking to us and indulging our pop culture obsession. To kick us off, can you give us a bit of background on Eaglemoss? Who are you, what audience do you cater to, and for long have you been doing it?

Eaglemoss was founded in 1975 and is a global leader in licensed collections. We have a long history of figurines, die-cast models, and partwork magazines. We’re lucky enough to work with characters and licenses from Marvel, DC, CBS, AMC, BBC, Disney, James Bond, Universal, and many more. Our core audience is built up of fans and collectors who care passionately about the brands.

A motley crew, if ever there was one. Can you tell us what Eaglemoss is bringing to the UK pop culture space in that case? How does it encompass that market and ignite the passion within the UK scene?

The overarching objective of the company has always been to create products that have real appeal for fans. It’s very important to us that we don’t just do the obvious products but create things that are authentic and have the kind of detail that fans appreciate. 

We are experts ourselves and work closely with licensors throughout the development process to make sure that the end product is not just high quality, but authentic and show all the love we have for the brands ourselves.

The adult market – or ‘kidult’ space – has seen steady growth here in the UK over the past few years, and last year accounted for 27 per cent of total spend on toys (according to NPD). How has this been reflected in sales growth at Eaglemoss? What strength of the UK’s ‘kidult’ sector have you witnessed?

We’ve specialised in the adult collector market for decades so its success isn’t a surprise to us. What we have found is that the growth of online sales is making it easier to reach those grownup fans. I think it’s fair to say it’s often been difficult for them to find products that show the level of care and attention that’s important to them. There’s a generation of people who grew up with these amazing properties. They haven’t given up on them as they’ve got older but their expectations have only gone up. They want products that are really designed for them. That’s something we pride ourselves on understanding. 

What do you think has been key to driving the growth in this space? What is it that businesses like Eaglemoss bring to the table to give that market credibility? 

More than anything it’s about our own level of fandom. The people we sell to can smell anything cynical a mile off. We’re really careful to make sure our products feel just right, whether that’s a specific detail on a super hero’s costume, the exact colour of a die-cast spaceship or including some detail that a fan will instantly recognise, and appreciate. Those are the kind of things that only someone who knows and loves the brand as much as the fans, would know to include. 

Can we talk through the Eaglemoss portfolio for 2021? What are the key launches from you guys this year across the pop culture portfolio? We hear you have a range of advent calendars launching – can you talk us through these?

We’re entering the advent calendars arena for the first time this year, which is a very exciting time for the company.  We’re launching these fantastic introductions with three iconic brands: Doctor Who, Star Trek and The Beatles; with each one featuring detailed, high-quality collectable items hiding behind each of the calendar doors. They’re really nicely designed and we think they’ll bring a smile to every fan’s face. 

The Doctor Who calendar has a classic TARDIS design which opens out to reveal its 24 doors, the Star Trek offering takes the distinctive form of a Borg cube/ship (as seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation) and The Beatles inspired calendar comes in the form of four trays encased within an outer shell featuring iconic Beatles artwork. They’re just things that make you happy. 

Why has the advent calendar market become an important one for you guys, and what will you be bringing to the space? What sort of growth of the market are you expecting to see in the coming years?

We always want to make new stuff, and we know we can bring something special to the calendar market by targeting collectors. Every item in these calendars has been specially designed and is exclusive. We’ve brought all our expertise and love for these brands to bear. 

One of the things we hear a lot is that people are nervous about buying things for fans because they think they might already have it. The great thing about these advent calendars is that you can absolutely guarantee that the content is brand new, and there is stuff in there that will make true fans smile. That and Christmas are a pretty good combination. We’re so pleased  with the final products, so we’re looking forward to revealing them to fans.

What retail partners are you guys currently working with? What are your plans for the UK retail scene? 

One of the unique things about Eaglemoss is that we offer an omnichannel solution – with bestsellers sold through key retail partners, like HMV, adding to sales through our own e-shop and high-end model kits through our subscription service. We try to cater for different audiences across the various channels and because of our product development heritage we’re able to play across a wide range of categories. 

Our retail expansion is going well in the US where we just have our first launch with Walmart and in other European markets through our network of distributors.

So, Ben, can you tell us what the next big step for Eaglemoss might be here in the UK?

We’re super excited about the next 12 months with plenty of new licences and product lines launching. We’ve only just dipped our toe in the water with our retail range and despite the difficulties that Covid-19 has brought we’ve still been able to expand our business, which is testimony to the products we’re bringing through. 

And just before we let you get back to the day job, is there anything you’d like to add?

Alongside our advent calendar launches, we’ve also got some really exciting products coming. We’ve got some classic sci-fi brands in The Expanse and Stargate. We’re just launching a new Hero Collector Museum made up of detailed replicas that are designed to sit on yourself and we’re also growing our horror offering. 

We have some amazing subscription offers that mean you can build extraordinary models of the Eleanor Mustang, the Ghostbusters Ecto 1, the Titanic and the Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation. There’s more Star Trek on TV than ever so we’re excited by the opportunities that will bring. 

We’re also developing Marvel statues based on the Disney + shows, so 2021 is shaping up to be a busy and exciting year for us.

Finding Neverland | How adult fans are driving toy sales across the UK

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There’s no shame in admitting it, toys, games, gaming, and play doesn’t have to have an age limit; something that a growing portion of the UK population can attest to. Last year, the UK’s kidult market hit new heights, fuelled by a pandemic that left grown ups and kids at heart with a lot more time on their hands to revisit their old passions. Given the audience size, it’s a market that can’t be stopped

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A factoid that gets overheard often when you spend any length of time within a city setting, is that you’re at no point, more than seven feet away from a mouse. The same could probably be said for Funko Pop! figures.

In fact, the statistic is likely somewhat higher. Higher still if you swap out specifics for the term now used to categorise a demographic of people that appears to be expanding at an alarming rate. If the most recent NPD figures are anything to go by, the UK’s ‘kidult’ sector, that is the adult audience of toy fans, appears to be, well, breeding like mice.

Accounting for a staggering 27 per cent of the total toy sales here in the UK for the year end 2020, the kidult sector is one that can be, by any means, no longer ignored.

What started decades ago, with the advent of the pop culture consumer products scene has shifted from an underground following of ‘ultra-nerdom’ to a mainstream – if not staple – sector within the UK toy space. Time was, tell a room full of adults about your collection of Transformers toys or your Mage level in the latest tabletop campaign, you’d be faced with stifled chortles and a lifetime of social isolation. Today, those self-confessed nerds are our celebrities, our pop icons, and our sports stars. And that’s OK. These days, when it comes to the topic of adult collectors of toys games, there really is no kidding around.

Take the pop culture gift and consumer products specialist, Fanattik, for instance. In its last financial year report, the firm found itself up around 123 per cent. We’re all aware that 2020 will forever be classed as a ‘freak’ year for sales figures, with online shopping helping drive sales in sectors that wouldn’t necessarily be replicated on the high street, but how would you account for the 40 per cent growth, year on year, that Fanattik has enjoyed each year before Covid-19?

“Traditionally, we never supplied toy retail, our focus was always on the gift trade,” Fanattik’s managing director, Anthony Marks, tells ToyNews. “But enquiries from the toy sector dramatically increased last year, retailers were looking for something different to add to their online offering, and the ones that trialed our range never looked back.”

It’s become a common narrative across the toy industry that the kidult audience is being recognised and catered to at a growing pace by companies and retailers once more aligned with the traditional children’s audience. There’s a reason that the Toymaster catalogue has started including Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons, just as it has welcomed Games Workshop into the fold in recent years, and why Pokemon Trading Card Game sales are in the midst of a world-wide resurgence, and why the local toy shop is just a likely to stock miniatures painting kits as it is Jellycat plush toys for pre-schoolers.

The audience for toys today is multi-generational.

“The genie is out of the bottle,” exclaims Marks. “Just look at the success Playmobil has had with its Back to the Future range. The retailers we are speaking with throughout Europe say that they will always have shelf-space for the latest blockbuster, but the iconic film and gaming brands cannot be ignored anymore.”

Late last month, Fanattik released details of a major new partnership with Hasbro and its Wizards of the Coast segment through which it will launch a range of licensed gifts and collectables based on its Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons gaming franchises. It’s a marker of success for the firm that has managed to carve a reputable name for itself in a market notoriously protective of its favoured IP. Marks has high hopes that the range will replicate the success retailers saw with Fanattik’s Yu-Gi-Oh! ranges when the collection launches in Q3 this year.

“We do not go for the latest film or game release, it has to be a brand with multi-generational appeal, an existing fanbase that
due to the market’s focus on the latest game or film release, finds itself being ignored,” says Marks.

“The Kidult sector has been growing year on year, and the pandemic gave it a major push forward. With no new film releases, for example, fans were going back and watching their old favourites and introducing those films to family members who missed it, or were too young to appreciate them the first time around.

“There are also millions of new gamers that have been created by having to spend more time at home, and that’s an audience that cannot be ignored either.”

This article – and a more in depth look at some of the firms taking on the ‘kidult’ sector – appears in the Spring/Summer issue of ToyNews.

No Kiddin’ Around | Why Playmobil is taking the adult fan market seriously this year and beyond

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It doesn’t take a DeLorean for a journey into your own past, but it certainly does help, as more and more toy companies are seeing audience numbers increase across their kidult product offering. Among them, is Playmobil, a company that is blazing a new trail with its expanded Back to the Future line-up this year.

For Playmobil, the kidult market has become big business. In tandem with the growth of the sector across the entire market, the Germany-based international toy maker has seen ‘substantial growth’ in the kidult market over the last four years. And it’s a trend that has given us some of the most eye-bulging launches in the space to date, from Ghostbusters and Back to the Future play-sets, to the retro appeal of Scooby-Doo.

In January this year, the NPD Group confirmed the growing appeal of the kidult market; an audience now responsible for more than a quarter of toy sales. In its year-end update the group revealed that this adult and teen category now represents 27 per cent of total toy sales, up by 16 per cent since 2016. Fuelled by adults with more time on their hands over 2020, home entertainment, it would seem, no encompasses physical play more than ever before.

So it’s just as well, then, that Playmobil has plans to remain consistent with its emerging new adult audience for the foreseeable future. Here, ToyNews catches up with Playmobil’ marketing communications manager, Adam Moore to explore the company’s success and future plans in the kidult space.

Hi Adam, harking back to the virtual tour you took us on earlier this year, it’s great to see a gear change in output targeting the kidult market from Playmobil this year. Can you tell us how important this market has become for you guys?

Playmobil has seen substantial growth in the Kidult market in the last four years. This was continued in 2020 with the Playmobil 70317 Back to the Future DeLorean which was one of our best performing sets. In 2021 we have more fantastic play sets to offer kidults and collectors including the new Volkswagen Camper and Beetle. The market has allowed adults who remember Playmobil so fondly from their childhood, to re experience the brand now they are a bit older.

What sort of growth have you seen across the kidult sector over the last few years? What have been the key drivers of this growth over the course of 2020?

Kidult’s have become a much bigger part of the toy market in the last few years. Adults are looking for product that is cool and great for collecting. We have experienced this trend in recent years with licenses such as Ghostbusters™ and Porsche, and more recently the 202o launch of the Playmobil Back to the Future product. This audience always wants more to add to their collection so new additions add new experiences and collectability, Playmobil continues to keep the audience engaged with new items like the 70634 Back to the Future Part II Hover board Chase.

 It’s been documented that the pandemic has helped fuel that kidult market, but it was very much on the rise prior to Covid. How long has it been on the Playmobil radar, and will you guys keep a hand in this market for the foreseeable future?

Playmobil has been catering for the Kidult market for a number of years. It remains a continued part of our plans across 2021 with new launches for Back to the Future and new licenses like Volkswagen. There may even be some surprises for kidult fans later in the year.

“The Kidult market is an important part of Playmobil business and continues to grow, there is so much potential out there for Playmobil to continue strongly in this category.”

What do you think Playmobil brings to that kidult market and the demand for nostalgia driven IPs and products? Why is Playmobil an ideal partner for tapping into that kidult market and pop culture demand?

Playmobil brings a true representative look and feel of some iconic licenses and vehicles. It’s a good mix of keeping the look and feel of these iconic license but also adding a Playmobil feel with our own characters. We are able to fuse the need for a true look and feel for the collector but also incorporate a sense of individuality and uniqueness.

 The Back to the Future range is brilliantly executed, what was the process of working with the IP like? What are the creative processes in bringing such a cult classic to the play space through Playmobil?

The Back to the Future range was a really exciting license to work with. The team at Universal continue to support and celebrate the franchise. The original film was 35 years old in 2020 so there was a lot to shout about and a lot going on with retailers, even with the unusual circumstances retail was in last year.

The license continues to be a huge success in 2021 and with the new sets out in May and a further Back to the future advent calendar released in September it is due to be another great year for Playmobil and Back to the Future.

 Likewise, the Scooby Doo collection speaks to multiple audiences, with a nostalgia heavy design – how do you strike the balance between targeting the two audiences?

Scooby-Doo has had such a long history with children watching for over 50 years! It was only natural that Playmobil’s tie up with this iconic legacy brand would speak to multiple audiences. The great thing about Scooby-Doo is that the characters, especially Scooby are so recognisable.

This makes it easy for young children all the way up to adults to identify with the brand in its Playmobil form. When you add into the mix the other iconic elements like the famous Mystery Machine and other well known scenes from the brand, it makes talking to both audiences easier.

 What future do you see for the kidult market in the toy space and in particular, its importance to Playmobil? Is it an area that will only grow stronger?

The Kidult market is an important part of Playmobil business and continues to grow, there is so much potential out there for Playmobil to continue strongly in this category and continue to create toys not just for kids but adults and collectors too.

What’s the next step for you guys in the kidult market space?

We have some new and exciting offerings in the Kidult and collectors market coming up. In May with have two new Back to the Future sets as well as more new Scooby-Doo additions in June

There is some exciting news in July, as we have two brand new special edition Volkswagen Campers and Beetles that will come as part of a limited edition run. Each product will have a individual serial number on the bottom of the product and feature chrome effect detailing making them extra special and perfect for collectors.