Episode #153: A Holiday Gift Guide Preview and What You Need To Get Featured In 2023
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For the first time ever, The Toy Coach is releasing a holiday gift guide featuring her top toy picks for the holiday season. The focus of today’s episode is to share a preview of this gift guide AND to educate you on what you need to get featured in any toy gift guide in 2023. This episode begins with a countdown of the top 12 toys you should gift this holiday and ends with a mini toy lesson on the top 5 things you MUST submit to publications if you want your product featured in Holiday Gift guides next year.
The Toy Coach’s holiday gift guide episode highlights toy creators who were consumers first and felt inspired by the kids in their lives to make an impact by creating the toys they wanted to see on the shelf.
To check out the gift guide described in today's episode visit, www.thetoycoach.com/guide where you can download the guide or order a physical copy.
Holiday Gift Guides: The Toy Coach's 2022 Holiday Gift Guide
Looking for a great holiday toy or game that's been created with passion and integrity by fellow parents, educators, teachers, and other everyday people like you? Then look no further than this gift guide.
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This episode is brought to you by the Chicago Toy and Game Fair happening December 10th-11th, 2022! This fair is open to the public and is the perfect opportunity to market, sell and promote your toy product before the end of the year. CLICK HERE or visit https://www.chitag.com/2022-fair to reserve your booth.
Download or order your own copy of The Toy Coach’s 2022 Holiday gift guide by visiting thetoycoach.com/guide
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[00:00:00] Azhelle Wade: You are listening to Making it in the Toy Industry, episode number 153.
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 and today's episode is brought to you by the holiday Chicago Toy and Game Fair, known as CHITAG. We've gotta give a special thanks to the sponsor of todays episode as they begin to celebrate their 20th anniversary of the Chicago Toyon Game Fair.
North America's largest toy and game fair that is open to the public. It's taking place at Rosemont, Illinois this December 10th and 11th. There are still a few 10 by 10 booths and table spaces available to showcase, sell, or promote your products. So don't miss out. If you've got product that you wanna get through by the end of the year, this is the show for you. If you've got product ideas that you wanna test out with real kids and parents, this is the show for you.
Yes, I will be at this event. I'll be hosting a live podcast episode in person, never done before. So hopefully all goes well and I'd love to see you there. Mary Couzin and her friends over at CHITAG have great incentives for you.
So I want you to go over to chitag.com/2022-fair and tell them that I sent you, and use the code Pop 200 to save $200 on your 10 by 10 booth. Now, of course if you're driving and you can't do all that right now, or you're walking, you're working out, I'll throw all the links in the show notes, so be sure to head over to the toy coach.com/ 1 5 3 to get the links to register for this awesome trade show. Okay, let's dive into today's.
So today's episode topic I'm so thrilled about. It's something a little bit different we haven't done on this show before. Today I'm gonna be sharing with you the Toy Coaches Holiday gift guide for 2022.
At the very end of this episode, I'm gonna share some tips with you if you want to be featured in a gift guide in the future.
There are important things that you need to know, that you need to have ready to send out to the editors of gift guides, and I'm gonna talk through a few dos and don'ts at the end of this episode. So if you have a product that you want in a gift guide, make sure to stay tuned to the end of this one.
[00:02:46] Azhelle Wade: So I've been thinking about creating a holiday gift guide for some time, but if you know me, you know the programs that I run and the clients that I have, and sometimes being an entrepreneur with a small team, it's hard to get all of the ideas that we have in our minds for our businesses.
But this year I was able to put together the first ever toy coach holiday gift guide, and I decided that I wanted this gift guide to focus on really special people in the toy industry. Those people are independent creators. Everyday people like you. That's right. This holiday gift guide focuses on the top toys that were made by fellow moms, teachers, healthcare workers, parents, people like you that are actually the consumers of the products that are put out into the toy industry year after year. People that get inspired by the kids and other adults in their lives to create. Powerful play products. So I wanted to create a holiday gift guide that really mattered to me, that could support the people that listen to this podcast for inspiration as they develop and grow their own toy businesses, and to give a little edge and visibility to my fellow entrepreneurs out there. Now, we often talk about how making toys is technically fun in games, but we all know having a product focused business isn't an easy task. So visibility in any form is a great thing. So the Toy Coach's holiday gift guide is something that you can view online or you can. Order a physical copy, so head over to thetoycoach.com/guide. That's gonna be the new home of the current gift guide and all future gift guides.
We've got 12 incredible toy products that I want to highlight on this podcast today, which are featured in our 2022 holiday gift guide. So let's start with our recommended holiday gift number one, and that's the Black Panther, Wakanda Forever Fresh Fierce Collection. So the Black Panther, Wakanda Forever Fresh Fierce Collection recently won Doll of the Year, and this collection was created by. World of EPI, who is the brand behind the Fresh Dolls. Now, if you're a super fan of this podcast, you've already listened to my recent episode with Dr. Lisa, who's lovingly known as the Queen of Dolls, and she started her career in.
Education. She was actually a professor with a tenured position who stepped away from all of that to create a line of dolls that would help little black girls love the skin they're in. So we wanna highlight and focus on the TOT award-winning line. She just came out with Black Panther, Wakanda Forever Fresh Fierce Collection, but also invite you to check out the gift guide for insights from our latest interview with Dr. Lisa. Dr. Lisa shared that her mother had a significant impact on her can do attitude. And here's how Dr. Lisa said this quote As a child, I remember one moment in time when we were in the living room cleaning, you know, Saturday chores. So we're doing the chores and she, my mom said, you know, you can be anything you want to. And I thought, yeah, yeah, okay. and she said, no, you can be a doctor if you want to. Now I'm like maybe seven years old, but it's stuck. And so as I start going through school, it was like, well, I can, I can be whatever I wanna be. I can do whatever I wanna do. end quote. Now that is a quote from our latest interview with Dr. Lisa, and you can. Full interview over at thetoycoach.com/152 and you can purchase and you can find more information about the Wakanda Forever Fresh Fears collection@worldofpi.com or purchase them over@target.com.
Let's move on to number two in our holiday gift guide, and this is a game called the Lunchroom.
The lunchroom is a game by a company called EAP Toys and Games, and it's not your typical food fight. In this game. You are allowed to play with your food as long as you don't lose your lunch or the lunch themed cards on your lunch tray. Because gathering all of those in the right spot is the goal to win this. My absolute favorite part of this game, the lunchroom, is the tater tot food fight card. When that card comes up, you've got these plush little tater tots that you've got to fight for so you can avoid negative effects like losing your cards. You can learn more about the lunchroom game and learn more about the creator, Chrissy Fagerholt. Hold in our latest holiday gift guide. Again, you can head over to the toy coach.com/guide to check out the holiday gift guide.
Now the lunchroom game is available at some small retailers as well as larger retailers like Barnes and Noble and Camp Stores. And I wanna let you know if you've ever had an idea for a toy or a game product like this one, Chrisy Falt, the creator of this company and this product is a mom and consumer, consumer before she ever ventured into the world of creating toys and games. So it's not completely out of your reach. Crhissy took Toy Creators Academy as part of her toy journey, which is something you can do as well.
To learn more about that, head over to toycreatorsacademy.com. All right, let's move on to holiday gift guide Item number three and that. Pixicade, the mobile game maker. Now, I really couldn't choose. Pixicade actually has two items, the mobile game maker and Pixicade pets. Now, I have personally so far played with the mobile game maker, but I am waiting on my delivery of Pixicade pets.
I've read about it, I've watched videos about it. I've been told about it and it sounds like a lot of fun. So I had to put both on the holiday gift guide just because I couldn't choose because I, I don't know which one I like best cause I haven't played both. I've only played the one. Now. First I wanna talk about Pixicade, the mobile game maker. With Pixicade, you, if you're a kid or an adult, can turn your drawings into actual playable video games. Games that you can play on your iPad. The colors of the markers that you use to draw your game makes the elements of your game have different properties. So for example, red is a hazard.
I believe black is a wall, if I remember all the colors correctly. and you can create your own hero in this game. Your own hazards, your own helpful tools. It's really cool to watch your drawing go from this inanimate static image to this moving playable video game. In literally seconds. Pade does give guides for how you can make games that are easier or harder to play, but really you need absolutely no experience to get started.
Now, Pixicade pets, the one I couldn't decide between, actually allows you to design, create your own pet, build the world that they live in. And care for them. And then play pre-built games with the pet that you've drawn. Now, if you can't draw, Pixicade Pets comes with templates and guides to teach you how to draw certain pets, but if you just wanna draw your own pet, you can draw whatever you like and take care of that pet wash, that pet.
Feed that pet and then play virtual games with that pet. Really cool game. The creators are Alicia Hortsman and Martin Hortsman man and the company they formed Bit O Genius. So this company consists of a team that's made up of educators, entrepreneurs, and tech experts who are passionate about gaming, technology, and education.
So I want you to check out Pixicae in the latest gift guide. Head over to thetoycoach.com/guide to check it out. Let's move on to number four in our holiday gift guide. Hugimals. There's this new category I've talked about on this podcast in the toy industry that I've dubbed Comfort and Wellness Toys, and these are toys or toy like products that seek to cure a problem like anxiety, stress, insomnia, toys that are designed to comfort and soothe.
So a Hugimals is that kind of a toy. Huggable were born out of a personal need of the creator Marina, who actually used weighted blankets to ease her own anxiety and trouble sleeping. But it didn't take very long for her to start looking for something that was more portable and less hot than a weighted blanket.
Then the idea of Hugimals came to her. So Hugimals are lovable, weighted, stuffed animals that actually feel like they're hugging you back. It lowers stress, it boosts calm, and it helps with sleep. I myself have two Hugimals. They are really high quality, beautifully designed, something that you would be proud to have in your own space and proud to gift to a loved one, whether it's a kid or adult.
I'm telling you, these are incredible items, so definitely check out thetoycoach.com/ guide. For more information on Hugimals .
Next up on this holiday gift guide, we've got Little Rebels. Little Rebels is an award-winning collection of licensed plush dolls. That's currently selling at museums here in the United States and coming soon to Macy's with Little Rebels, little girls or little boys, whoever wants to play with the dolls can get to know iconic women throughout history who've changed the world by interacting with their plush dolls through an interactive app. So I say that. Doll app has something called doll recognition software. I mean, that's how I see it, because you actually can scan the doll's face using the camera on your phone through this app, and it will recognize what doll you have and unlock games and stories in which you can get to know your plush Little Rebel doll.
So it's a little. Uncovering of history, a special effect. When you get this plush doll, you get games, you get kind of a ar reality augmented reality experience in this app. You get quizzes and you get a book that tells you the entire story of the iconic Little Rebel that your plush is designed after.
Now, the founder and CEO of Little Rebels is Marjorie Spit. Nick, she's a single mom and a Latin entrepreneur who created this product for her daughter. Marjorie's story is really inspiring, so if you are somebody that has an idea like Marjorie, I'm sure that her story can inspire you.
And if you are somebody that wants to. Expose your little one to more iconic women throughout history instead of just the men that might be in their textbooks. Then definitely check out this line. I want you to head over to the toy coach.com/guide because there is a peak into our interview with Marjorie Spittle Nick, where she shares more about her entrepreneurial journey, creating Little Rebels.
Let's move on to the next item in our Toy Coaches holiday gift guide, and that is the Power Pony. The Power Pony is a product that was imagined by Kids for Kids. It is a ride on a plush horse that is designed to feel like you're riding an actual horse. So this little creator, Mia Monzidelis actually came up with the idea when she was five years old.
She got a plush horse for Christmas. She got a hoverboard for Christmas, and she combined those two things together, started riding it around her house and showing her parents what she had come up with. Her parents and her friends. Mia, you've gotta make this into a business. Her parents helped her make it happen, and now she has a patented Zumi engine that powers the Power Pony line. So this is a real ride on mini pony that is guaranteed to bring fun. Smiles and laughter for your kids, and there are many riding adventures. So again, to learn more about this Power Pony, head over to the toy coach.com/guide.
And we also had an interview with Mia Monzedelis, luckily. So check out the clips from that interview in our guide as well.
Next up on our holiday gift guide list is Mailbox Mutts. This is a brand new product, so listen up. Mailbox Mutts are plush pups that send kids real mail. So the name of the main mailbox mutt character is Milo, and he's a postal delivery dog that comes in a durable paper mailbox with a working flag door. And. Slot. The product includes stickers, a poster and a welcome letter with a unique redemption code that you can use to activate real letters to be sent to your kid. So once it's registered, the household will receive four real letters from Milo Weekly.
There are different levels of subscriptions, so you can either choose a few months of real mail or a full year of real mail. It depends on how much mail you think your kid wants to receive. Now the creator of this product is a mom also, Wendy Latimore. Years ago Wendy wanted to help her son, who was a struggling reader, and she came up with a product called Sunny the mail snail . And sunny the male snail is, was a smash hit and that award-winning subscription business inspired Wendy's new creation of Mailbox Mutts. Which functions as an amazing retail toy. So Wendy is on a mission to help kids feel important, develop reading skills, promote learning, laughter, travel, and imagination through weekly letters.
Next up on our holiday gift guide is a cool game called Patchwork Garden. So Patchwork Garden is a game created by Brenda Extrom. And Brenda started a studio called Blue Ninja Studios. Her studio is family owned, but majorly award winning, and she's created several games.
And one of my favorites is Patchwork Garden. Patchwork Garden is a preschool memory game with a bit of a twist. Kids playing this game work to pair distinct flower pots with colorful plans, and it creates this visual retrieval cue that aids and improves memory. During the game play, there are countless flower, pot and plant combinations so the kids will never play the same game twice. To learn more about Brenda, I want you to head over to the toy coach.com.
guide, or if you're already sold and you wanna buy Patchwork Garden for someone special in your life, this product is available on Amazon.
Let's dive into item number nine on the Toy Coach Holiday guide, and that's Global Kidizen Dolls. Now, global Kidizen Dolls was also up for a TOTY nomination this year, while they didn't take home the win. The nomination is huge. So let's talk about this incredible Doll Line.
Global Kidizens is a group of diverse characters from around the world. The goal of these dolls is to inspire young children to discover different cultures, embrace others, and encourage belonging. So every doll has their own story, and the goal of this is to connect hearts by highlighting similarities and differences between dolls that are on far between dolls that all originate from different far reaches of the.
The doll that I have is Mapenzie from Lamu, Kenya, and I actually traveled to Lamu Kenya while I was visiting a friend of mine who lived in Kenya. We took a tiny plane and then a boat to get to this tiny little island where we spent about, I think we spent about four days there. We had oysters right from the sea.
We rode in a sailboat. We talked to the locals. We ate amazing food at both fancy restaurants and really casual spots as well. I love Lamu Kenya, but it is a very, Obscure or place that I wouldn't have expected there to be a doll focused on. So I love the creator, Misty Castaneda is really focusing on various parts of the world, not just the most top known tourist spots but maybe some small cities and small towns across the globe that most people may not have heard of.
to learn more about the creator, Misty Costan, yada, and why she created Global Kidizens, make sure you head over to the toy coach.com/guide.
Number 10 on our Toy Coach Holiday gift guide is the Amara Chemistry Lab puzzle. So the Amara Chemistry Lab puzzle is created by Terry Elle Bradley, the founder of Brown Toy Box. This company focuses on making steam, culturally representative, accessible and fun to black and brown kids.
Recently, the Amara Chemistry Lab puzzle was listed on Oprah's favorite things. Each puzzle comes with a clear pouch, making it super easy to carry for travel and cleanup. This puzzle is representing a little brown girl wearing a pink hijab as a scientist. And that's really the magic of all Brown Toy Box toys that they are showing black and brown kids that they can work in these STEAM professions too, by not just telling them they can, but showing them what it looks like when someone that looks like them works or is placed in one of professions. And as my mom always says, people can only become what they know or what they can see. So the work that Terry is doing with Brown Toy Box to make it more visible for black and brown kids to see themselves in all these different roles is so important. So make sure you head over, check out our holiday gift guide so you can learn more about Brown Toy Box. Additionally, in this guide, we have clips from an interview we did a while back with Terry Michelle Bradley, in which she shares how she started her company, Brown Toy Box, and how she actually did that by starting local before going big. So if you want to learn how someone started a toy company that focused on local media coverage and is now named one of Oprah's favorite things, you're definitely gonna wanna check out this interview in our holiday gift guide. Number 11 on our holiday gift guide.
Ugh, I'm so excited to share this item with you. It's called HoneyLambs. Now honey lambs are a little bit different than most of the things that I might talk about here. I would say this is more of an artistic toy. Honey lambs are an artistic expression of what the creator calls trauma toys. They are designed to connect with this edgy adult market. Their mission as stated on their website, is super unconventional, but really intriguing.
So here it is. Honey Lamb's toys are representative of innocent souls that are trapped. They might not look like other toys, maybe they're a little different. They have a few extra limbs or heads, but they're still worthy of our love and acceptance.
Honey Lambs has an incredible following online. The creator, Ernesto Stewart has a vision that cannot be denied. So I want you to head over to our holiday gift guide@thetoycoach.com slash guide to check out Honey Lambs and get to know Ernesto and the style of the brand.
Now our final toy on the Toy Coach's holiday gift guide is called? What's it's face? What's its face is an innovative plush that focuses on helping children with emotional learning. So every, what's its face? Plush has six faces that feature six different emotions, happy, sad, surprised, angry, amused, and sleepy. With a simple turn of a knob that you'll find on the top of a plus's head or a flip of a face, which you can do by pushing the plus's face easily. A child can see and identify a wide range of emotions in a matter of seconds. The goal of what's at face plush is to help children build emotional strength and resilience and prepare them for life's challenges. The creator of what's its face is also TCA alumni named Joanna Paul. She's a passionate inventor and entrepreneur. Whose goal is to help children identify emotions, build strength and resilience, and again, prepare them for life's challenges. You can still purchase what it's face online. So head over to the toy coach.com/guide to grab the links. Fair warning, the cat plush is out of stock, but don't worry, they've still got a puppy and a teddy bear and either of those options are adorable.
Well, there you have at Toy People. I hope you enjoyed listening to this preview of the Toy Coach's Holiday gift guide. If you go to the toy coach.com/guide, you'll find all of the links to purchase the products I mentioned here today. You can also go to the toy coach.com/ 1 5 3.
Now, if you're listening to this episode and you want the most important tip for today, you're wondering what is the most important tip for today, Azhelle?
Well, I want you to think about applying for holiday gift guides next year. I want you to mark in your calendar right now, For August of next year, August is usually the time that people start accepting applications to their holiday gift guides, and most of those guides will then come out in the early half of q4, so they have plenty of time to promote it before the holiday season actually kicks off. So if you are gonna try to get into the holiday guide for the Toy Book or Women in Toys Holiday Guide, or the Toy Coaches' Holiday gift guide, I want you to make a note in your calendar.
That you are going to start applying for gift guides in August of 2023. And now when you apply to gift guides, I wanna give you a couple of tips to make sure that you are putting your best foot forward for these guides.
Number one most important thing I need you to have when you're applying to a holiday gift guide is a super clear description of your product. We need a really good description of what your product is. Think about how you would describe your product to someone who's never heard of it before. What your product is, what your product does, why a kid would want to play with it, and when they'd wanna use it. Think about answering those questions.
Make sure you're not just sending in a product description that is a bullet pointed list of what comes in your toy. While we do want that information so we know what's included, we also want what they call the romance copy or the sales copy of your product. It's a thing that tells people what this toy is and why it's so cool. You need that in addition to having a bullet pointed list of what's included, okay? After that romance copy, make sure we know what's included. We wanna have an understanding if we tell somebody to buy this product, that they are gonna get all of the pieces they need to play with it in that box.
Okay? Other than that, I want you to make sure that you're sending in great images. I would recommend one to three images on a white background, and then at least one great lifestyle shot of your toy being used by the target market it's designed for.
So if it's a ride on power pony, a shot where a kid is riding the power pony, if it is a Honeylambs, plush, a shot of a collector holding it or storing it in their home. So make sure you. Images of your product that are high re so we can see the detail of your product.
Additionally, for your gift guides, not all of them want this, but I'm gonna recommend you have either a bio ready or a link to where someone can grab your bio. Because sometimes the holiday gift guides might be like mine, where they wanna feature the creator, they wanna talk a little bit about the person who made the product.
So you. Are ready to go with a little bio that talks about you and why you created the toy business you created, or the toy product you created, or maybe both. Along with that bio, we wanna make sure we have a headshot. It's always best if you have a headshot with a solid background so that if they need to for their publication, they can cut that background out.
Don't forget those things.
Okay those are some really important pieces that if you're gonna start pitching your product for gift guides, you do not want to forget. I can tell you in the creation of my own gift guide, not having some of those pieces really made it difficult to include certain products in the gift guide. So I found myself in a situation where as much as I wanted to include a certain product I couldn't because I didn't have the right images, or the right copy, and it wasn't something that I could or should have to create as the person building the gift guide.
Before we close out for today's episode, I wanna give a listener spotlight. Today's listener spotlight goes out to Connie Bird. Connie Bird's Review is titled, Azhelle is Amazing. Azhelle has such passion and knowledge of the field of toy design. Every episode brings useful nuggets of information and important lessons to get into the industry. I highly recommend why. Thank you, Connie Bird.
If you love this podcast and you haven't already left a review, what are you waiting for? Your reviews mean the world to me. I get a notification on my phone each time a new one comes in, and they keep me motivated to come back week after week. So wherever you're listening to this podcast, I would appreciate it so much if you went into your podcast app looked for where you can write a review and wrote a positive review for the show.
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.
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