Long gone are the days where toy manufacturers flock to Disney Channel or Cartoon Network to reach kids watching The Suite Life of Zack & Cody or Johnny Bravo. These days, the kiddos are all in on the streaming wars.
Consider Bluey, an Australian TV show that has found a passionate US audience on Disney+, and was the second most-watched series across all of streaming in 2023, according to Nielsen. Or take Cocomelon, the YouTube channel-turned children’s musical series, which now has eight seasons, notched nearly 200 million views in the second half of 2023, and was, like Bluey, among the top programs on streaming in 2023.
The shift to streaming means a changing of the guard for toy brands that have reached young eyeballs on traditional TV—and perhaps those of family members who actually buy household items and gifts. As most linear TV sees a decline, kids’ toy brands have shifted their advertising strategies to streaming, social, and YouTube to better seek out their target audiences.
“Over the last 50 to 70 years…you could do a single spot commercial for kids that would air on Saturday morning and then that would drive, essentially, your playground conversation,” said Josh Hackbarth, CMO of MGA Entertainment, which manufactures toys like Bratz dolls and Little Tikes products. “We of course have had to evolve on that messaging as not just methods have changed, but attention spans have gotten a little bit shorter as well.”
Two birds with one stone
It’s no secret that cable cord-cutting is increasing and consumers are moving over to streaming, and that means brands are on the move, too.
At MGA, that means looking for the places where potential customers are spending the most time. With so many children streaming TV shows, MGA saw an opportunity to build awareness for its products, including for its doll line Rainbow High, according to Hackbarth. Through a 2021 deal with Netflix, Rainbow High, a series based on the toy line, streams on the platform for kids to watch. Paired with the licensed products and toys created based on the line, the series is part of an effort to grow the brand into a broad franchise with multiple touchpoints, Hackbarth said.
It’s not just kids’ attention that toy brands are after. As more kids watch content on platforms like Netflix and Disney+, their parents are tuning in, too, said Jason Bunge, CMO of Hasbro, a co-viewing trend that he said was happening almost exclusively on streaming. That co-viewing presents an opportunity for toy brands to reach both children and the adults who may be buying their children the toys they want.
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“You have this interesting dynamic where you’re actually able to reach two types of audiences,” he said.
As for linear TV, he said it’s still pretty useful in reaching what is perhaps the biggest gift-giving cohort of them all: grandparents. “You’re starting to see this really nice differentiation across channels for audience engagement,” he said.
Chronically online
But perhaps the largest platform that toy brands can reach target audiences on is on YouTube. Kids aged 2 to 11 watched three times as much YouTube as they did Disney+ programming in April, according to Nielsen, and Cocomelon alone has a nearly 180 million-strong subscriber base on YouTube.
“There are now probably thousands of original series [on YouTube] aimed at that five-year-old or that six-year-old,” Paul Furia, head of content and creative packaging at the agency Media by Mother, told Marketing Brew.
While Hasbro and MGA are showing up on YouTube, they’re diversifying ad spend on various online platforms and channels that have growing kids viewership. Hasbro has been experimenting with advertising on Roblox and has worked with TikTok creators on some campaigns, including last year for a 72-hour Halloween campaign around Ouija boards. Going forward, Hasbro plans to lean more heavily into creator partnerships, Bunge said.
Being on social media has the added benefit of benefitting from user nostalgic for the kids’ brands they grew up with, which can help drive sales. Hackbarth gave Bratz dolls as an example, which debuted in 2001. Bratz’s TikTok and Instagram account engagement is “incredible,” Hackbarth said, and the accounts have more than 5 million followers combined.
Beloved childhood brand or not, though, other parents who are tired of being inundated with ads targeting their little tykes might opt for less ad-heavy platforms. Furia himself admits to being one of them.
“We’re a YouTube Premium household,” he told us,“so we avoid ads.”