The toy market is one of the most competitive marketplaces going with competition across direct products and across different classes of product.  In recent years, the importance of technology in the sector has become known, as games consoles are introduced to effectively trump all other toys.  Whatever the product, the advertisers have refined their art form by connecting with the kids to afford a deeper sell. In this article we will look at branding in the toy market, with a particular emphasis on the games console industry, and how they approach marketing their products to great success.

Early in the 20th century, toy advertising was virtually not a factor, as most toys were hand crafted or passed down through generations.  By the end of the century however, toys dominated our TV sets at those key points in the day, and if you've got kids you'll know how well they work.  With western economies booming, personal disposal income scaled new heights, and it was easy to see why these toy adverts had such a good yield.  This also spawned the phenomenon of the Christmas scramble, where certain toys are the most desirable at Christmas.  One of the best ever plays on this situation was by Sony with their PlayStation 2 back at its release.  It's release around Christmas time was perfect, and in the UK, supply was drastically limited to merely a few hundred thousand units.  Of course with this scarcity, it really wasn't a problem to queue all night and pay £350 ($700) for your console.

And this is a formula that's been repeated time and time again.  It doesn't matter what the toy is, if it's hyped around Christmas you can bet you won't be able to find it.  Scarcity is the basic principle of economics, and when demand well exceeds supply, this only has the effect of glamorizing the product and driving the price up beyond its value.  The toy market have proven that they really know what they're doing, and this form of hype marketing is certainly testament enough to that proposition.

The fact is when it comes to advertising and branding in the toy market, creating desire is the key.  If you can create the desire in the kids, you're half way there.  The 'pester' culture is ideal for advertisers, and the industry has built up such a strong connection with children that these goods practically sell themselves.