What’s Trending: ASTRA Marketplace & Academy

June 13, 2018 | Toy Association trends specialist, Adrienne Appell, visited the ASTRA Marketplace & Academy in New Orleans, LA this week. Using The Toy Association’s top trends of 2018 as a guide, she spotted some great toys and games on the show floor that are expected to be hot all summer long:

Games Galore

Summer is here, and families have a ton of game options to play at home or while on the road. Snippets is perfect for older kids (10+) and adults. With its unique "anything goes" rule, you don’t need a crazy vocabulary to compete, and unlike most word games, the "smartest" player doesn’t always win. I Gotta Go With, also targeted to an older kid/adult crowd, is a party game that focuses on pop culture, with 200+ questions that have numerous answers. Players need to come up with as many correct answers as they can. Fat Brain’s new Pencil Nose is part of the slapstick “Instagram worthy” game trend. Players have to use their nose (via special glasses) to try and sketch the prompt and then hope their teammates can correctly guess what they're drawing, resulting in fun images and videos to share with friends along with hilarious game play. 

Pet Play

From nurturing plush to virtual pets, pet play is huge in 2018. Appell saw an array of products that combined classic pet themes with other trends on display at the show. Mythical Slyme takes the slime trend and adds in a bit of the “gross out” trend to pet play. This diverse line of unicorn-themed compounds (think Unicorn Tears, Unicorn Poop, and even Unicorn Sweat) has pretty packaging and fun colors and will enchant unicorn lovers of all ages.  

Creative play and pet play merge with Sparkles the Unicorn, the newest magical member of Creativity for Kids’® highly successful Sequin Pets line launched at this year’s Toy Fair. Sparkles is a calming, weighted, reversible sequined plush animal that can be decorated with fun, repositionable felt stickers. It will be sold exclusively at Learning Express Toys nationwide this summer. For kids who love to play outside and use their imagination, the Pony Bike Kit from Pony Pals allows them to turn their bicycle into their very own ride-on horse! The kit includes the pony head and mane, tack (halter, streamers, and handlebar pad), and pony tail and is available in two colors.

Toys that Teach

This year’s “Toys that Teach” trend applies not only to the popular STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) trend, but also encompasses toys that teach kids about art, and about kindness and being a good citizen. At ASTRA, Appell saw toys that teach kids many different skills, helping them to develop into well-rounded young adults. 

The Doll Kind, founded by two moms on a mission to empower and inspire children to create a kinder world, showcased their Kindness Spreading Dolls. Each soft, huggable doll comes with tokens for children to give as a random act of kindness. In addition, for each doll sold, a doll is donated to a child in need.

Another mission-driven company, Today is Art Day, strives to make art history more enjoyable and accessible to a far-reaching audience. Their Art History Heroes collection of action figures brings famous artists, such as Frida Kahlo and Rembrandt, to life. The figures not only teach about the artists in a fun and engaging way, they also each have a special feature, like a glow-in-the-dark component or a scent.

On the STEM front, Sensors Alive from Thames & Kosmos, slated to launch this summer, brings physics to life in an engaging experiment kit. The core of this science kit is an app-based video game in which kids use real-world sensor data that they collect from their environment to generate a diverse array of creatures. Then they can create, collect, play with, and take care of the creatures in the app.

These are just some of the terrific products and trends that were on display at the ASTRA Marketplace & Academy. The Toy Association’s trends team is always on the lookout for hot new toys and games. Send product information to Akshata Hase, marketing communications coordinator at The Toy Association, for review.