I have been in Italy visiting Clementoni this week, as the company celebrates its 60th anniversary. Hence I find myself writing this week’s Blog overlooking the beach, trying to make sense of some of the more bizarre stories that have been doing the rounds this week. As it’s summer, we have definitely hit silly season and some companies seem to be embracing that concept rather enthusiastically.

Let’s start with Argos and its giveaway of £20,000 worth of toys. Positioned as a way of tackling the amount of time kids spend on their phones and as an attempt to get “children playing again” (really, children aren’t playing??), customers could enter a competition to win a £20 voucher to redeem against a toy for their kids (or presumably themselves). I’m sure the fact that the competition coincided with Amazon Prime Days was purely coincidental and had no bearing on the timing of the promotion. None at all.

I suppose you could say that it’s an act of selfless generosity, but I can’t help thinking that a big giveaway of this nature risks positioning toys as products of low intrinsic worth. And coming just after the announcement of the closure of 100 standalone Argos branches, which will leave 70 towns without a physical Argos store, I wonder slightly about the optics.

But if I have some reservations about the efficacy of this particular promotion, they pale into insignificance next to my bemusement at Amazon’s remarkable attempt to win the ‘Shaggy – It wasn’t me’ award for 2023 (and possibly the whole decade). Apparently, Amazon has disputed its categorization by the EU as a Very Large Online Platform. In fact, Amazon is taking legal action to have the designation removed. I am very much looking forward to hearing which part of the definition Amazon refutes. Very large? Online? Platform? Nothing is jumping out as being wildly inaccurate there. What on earth are they going to claim to be?

Of course, there is a serious underlying issue here – the VLOP status would confer additional responsibilities on Amazon to protect its users from illegal products. One might suggest that if Amazon was entirely confident that its current procedures were suitably robust and effective, it would have nothing to worry about. Just a thought…

Thankfully, there have been some positive stories to balance up the crazy stuff, none more so than the incredible promotional campaign that Mattel and Warner Bros have initiated ahead of the launch of the Barbie movie. Hat tip to the marketing teams of both companies, who really have delivered fantastic activations and achieved amazing results. I am very much looking forward to seeing the movie next week – the Toy World team has its best Barbiecore outfits ready and is raring to go.

Meanwhile, Disney licensees must be looking on with pure envy at the wall-to-wall Barbie coverage, thinking “Wasn’t this the kind of thing that we were promised?” I appreciate that a one-off event and a year-long campaign are two different beasts, but maybe that’s the fundamental problem – one campaign has laser focus, the other is sprawling, slightly nebulous, unstructured and lacks a focal point around which to build a coherent campaign. But on past evidence, I don’t see Disney holding its hands up and admitting its shortcomings, or offering anyone refunds.

A few people contacted me after reading last week’s Blog to put across an alternative viewpoint on the Toys R Us concessions that have recently been unveiled in WH Smith stores. It seems that several people have been a little more impressed with the concessions than those I quoted in last week’s Blog, with the words ‘pleasantly surprised’ cropping up on more than one occasion. Some specialist retailers have even expressed concern about a potential roll-out impacting their business, especially if they are located in town centres where they currently have little or no direct competition. It’s also interesting that some indies feel that Toys R Us potentially represents a greater threat because it has followed the path of stocking well-known brands and ranges, which runs counter to the narrative of the person I quoted last week, who felt that the ranging was fairly predictable and unadventurous. I guess there are always two sides to every story.

So, what are the prospects for a further roll-out of Toys R Us concessions in the UK in the foreseeable future? Well, Toys R Us Australia is currently trying to raise $8m, with $3m of that sum earmarked for UK expansion – so a lot depends on how successful that fundraising drive is. However, I have it on fairly good authority that that the business achieved in the three TRU franchises that have been opened to date has significantly exceeded expectations, which has given the team the confidence to plan to roll out to more WHS stores as soon as possible. Watch this space…

Just a couple of quick notifications to finish: congratulations to Michelle Lilley on her promotion to vice president marketing EMEA at MGA, and also to Sara Gibson, who has joined Moose Toys as sales director, having previously spent many years in buying and operations roles within the Tesco Central Europe team.

I also gather there is some very positive news on the London Toy Fair front, which we look forward to sharing with you next week. And if you’re planning to visit the Canton Fair, you might want to make a note that it has moved from Phase 2 of the event to Phase 3, which moves it back a week in the calendar (likely dates are apparently 31st October to 4th November).

Finally, the official Fantasy Football Game has gone live and that means the Toy World Masters League is now officially open. The code to join the league is 1txeek. All are welcome, whether novice or expert – the more the merrier. I am just waiting for someone from Amazon to join under the team name ‘Modestly sized online platform FC (honest guv)’.