Bollywood, Hindu gods flavour of German toy fair
Bollywood, India’s thriving Hindi movie industry, and Hindu gods are the flavour of a German toy fair that opened here Thursday.
“Bollywood is also a big topic here, especially among our adult customers,” said Bettina Brogsitter, sales representative for the Munich maker Lupu, referring to the growing popularity in the West of romantic films made by Indian filmmakers.
Capitalizing on puzzles and textile arts at once, a German manufacturer of jigsaws has launched a line for women who love all things Indian.
One 1,000-piece puzzle, which would take several days to solve, depicts Ganesha, the Hindu god of wisdom with four arms and the head of an elephant.
Others pick up Buddhist themes or explicit sex scenes, making clear that these puzzles are not for the kids.
With birth rates dropping in several of the richest nations, manufacturers at this year’s Nuremberg Toy Fair are taking a fresh look at adults as additional fans for playthings.
The six-day annual fair, with more than 2,700 exhibitors, is the world’s biggest showcase for new toys. But children are banned, since the expo is for trade buyers only.
Mainstream toys launching at this year’s fair employ electronics in ingenious new guises to fascinate children.
Mattel of the US is showing a new version of Barbie, the fairy Elina, with an infrared remote control in her body.
In a revival of the classic line of Transformer toys for boys, complete with a Hollywood movie tie-in, US rival Hasbro is releasing a full-face helmet with a loudspeaker that distorts a child’s voice into a robot crackle.
Winchell Cheung, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council’s envoy in Frankfurt, said surveys at the Hong Kong toy fair in Jan show that children aged 6-10 are the fastest growing market, with parents setting increasing value by the educational value of toys.
Green issues remain important.
A German company, Hape, launched a toy line made entirely of Chinese bamboo, pointing out that the plants grew back to their original size three years after cutting. In the Pallina game, for example, bamboo rods have to be pulled from a tangle.
While children remain the prime customers, Nuremberg organizers say the 40-plus generation, and its enormous spending power is too big to ignore in the local German market.
This year’s Toy Fair has a special section for older people entitled “Toy Generations.”
Among the offerings was a German quiz game for the middle-aged and pensioners that requires a vivid recollection of the 1960s.
Cheung said the trade was also catering to “ageing children” in Hong Kong where there is only 0.8 of a child to every woman resident.
While model trains have been a long time passion among grown men, toy makers have picked puzzles and textile arts as promising for women.
In his annual survey of the world toy industry, Cheung said exports of Hong Kong toys to Central and Eastern Europe were set to rise sharply. Hong Kong is second to China as the world’s biggest toy exporter.
Cheung also offered some comfort to toy makers from the West, saying they enjoyed good prospects in China, where an expanding middle class of 300 million people would be eager to buy world brands for pampered children and disdain Chinese brands.
— IANS
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