Toy stories made timeless: How legacy brands stay fresh in an ever-changing world of play

This year, the last babies will be born into Generation Alpha, the world’s largest generation in history, accounting for about two billion people. While their world of play seems to have changed at an equally unprecedented rate, the joy of play has not. Lisa Battles looks at how legacy toy companies are going back to basics for brand appeal that transcends generations.

As of August 2024, the leading toy brands and licenses in the world are Pokémon, Squishmallows, Star Wars, Marvel Universe and Hot Wheels, according to global market research firm Circana‘s performance figures for the first half of the year. Now consider that if each of these brands were human and assigned to generations by their founding, there’s only one Gen A in the bunch: Jazwares’ Squishmallows — the kawaii-inspired plush toys launched in 2017.

Founded in 1996, the leader Pokémon is just barely a Gen Z, although it’s important to note its rebrand in 2018 was major, completely reinventing its games while keeping its original logo. Of the other three brands, two are Gen Xers (Star Wars, Hot Wheels), while Marvel Universe goes back to the silent generation. Disney purchased the latter in 2009, about one year after the Marvel Cinematic Universe debuted with ‘Iron Man.’

Driving a big chunk of the sales is a growing ‘kidult’ market, consumers aged 18 or older who purchase toys for themselves. According to Circana, they accounted for $1.5 billion in toy sales from January to April of this year, surpassing the market’s preschool segment for the first time on record.

Clearly that segment is nostalgia-driven, but why are so many actual kids so interested in these ‘old’ toy brands? Aren’t they all supposed to be so different about what they want?

Acknowledging generational differences

Few argue against the value of quality market data and research about generational preferences. It’s an often-reported topic, yet often lacking clear insights about what makes one generation sound much different than those before. Often that issue occurs because people draw conclusions from data without accounting for the many factors beyond birth years, according to global market research firm Ipsos.

In its extensive 2023 report, ‘We Need to Talk About Generations,’ Ipsos spells out three effects that must be considered when “using a generational lens” to study societal and consumer change: lifestyle effects, such as being more physically active when younger; period effects that affect every generation at a certain time, such as the Covid pandemic; and cohort effects, which are ways a generation differentiates itself from others at the same age. The study adds that where a person was born and raised creates dramatic differences between people of the same age, and last, dynamics between generations often are wildly different by country.

We do know certain facts, regardless. Generations Z and Alpha are the only true digital natives, most having grown up surrounded by technology and with instant access to vast amounts of information. It's clear at least these generational realities play into product development at toy companies. The market is full of toys that merge physical and digital play experiences, whether that’s physical toys with apps or other tech integrations, or physical toy lines borne of digital apps, games and media.

Transcending generational and digital trends

Meanwhile, many enduring toy brands are taking a bigger-picture view when it comes to brand strategy and identity. What resonates with humans no matter their age?

Truth. Authenticity. Stories that develop like we all do as humans.

That is always the starting point for renowned designer and Pentagram partner Emily Oberman, who led the brand identity refresh for Fisher-Price in 2020 and, in 2024, a total brand evolution for American Girl. Both are Mattel-owned brands.

“I am not saying a cool gadget or widget isn’t cool. I love all that stuff! But that cool gadget or widget just has to be real,” Oberman says.

And by real, she means to stand the test of time, it needs a real story that develops naturally.

Oberman’s keen attunement to storyline development draws upon her early-career method acting studies as well as her extensive design work in film and TV. She’s evolved the ‘Saturday Night Live’ opening sequences for decades and shaped many legacy and modern brands with NBC, Warner Bros, Warner Music Group, DC, and Amazon Prime Video. You may also have seen her work in other high-profile cultural touchpoints including the Harry Potter Wizarding World and Fantastic Beasts franchises, Ready Player One and Justice League.

“I think of everything as entertainment. Everything has to be entertaining in some way. I think of everything as having an arc. A book has an arc, a poster has an arc where your eyes travel down it. Working with toys also has a storytelling and entertainment kind of quality about it,” Oberman says. “It is always about authenticity. It always, always is. No matter what the project is or what the product is, it’s always about finding the kernel of truth. I can’t do a brand if there’s not something real in the story we are telling.”

Fisher-Price: Return to a playful sense of fun

With Fisher-Price, the Pentagram team collaborated to refresh its brand identity to “return to a playful sense of fun.” Oberman says the company was open to a complete rebrand, saying they could “throw out the brand and start all over again,” adding, “We couldn’t! They needed the story of who they were to be in it.”

Fisher-Price, headquartered in Aurora, New York, dates to 1930 and is one of the world’s top toymakers. It is best known for infant and preschool toys along with numerous other products to serve kids and parents in this stage of life… or from “bump to bus,” as the company says. Now-classic Fisher-Price toys include the Little People playsets and the Corn Popper, while more modern brands include Linkimals and Power Wheels.

“Their CEO said he really wanted to get back to the roots of the brand. One of his most important points was he felt they had gotten lost along the way with too much talk about claims of what the brand could do. He said, ‘Nobody gives a toy as a present because of what it can do. You give a toy because of the joy of giving a toy.’”

With that, the team set about to “put the fun back into functional” and “play back into playtime.” The new tagline became, “Let’s be kids.”

Coinciding with a new brand strategy for Fisher-Price led by Wieden+Kennedy, the Pentagram team kept the story alive through a brand identity refresh that included a logo update, custom typeface, messaging, art direction and merchandising. The logo work refined the company’s red ‘awning’ mark, reducing the four scallops to three to represent the company’s three founders as well as the concept of parents and kids. They redrew the logotype to lowercase and refined it a bit, replacing the hyphen between the names with a semicircle that mirrors the awning scallops and Little People smiles.

American Girl: Return to storytelling

In 2024, the Pentagram team took on the first brand refresh for American Girl since its launch in 1986. Now under the Mattel umbrella, the line of premium dolls has always stood out for its storytelling. Each doll comes with an accompanying book that creates a persona and world to explore. Besides encouraging reading in general, the books impart tales from US history, with girls representing fictional characters throughout key points over the country’s development.

Recognising this prime differentiator, the Pentagram team ensured the brand positioning, brand voice and messaging would recentre on this storytelling with a modern approach that would appeal to this next generation of girls. They continued the “exceptional story of girlhood,” with a new brand tagline of “Find your inner star,” to support independence and self-reliance. As for the new brand identity, Pentagram delivered a new wordmark, custom typeface, expanded colour palette, packaging, and environmental graphics – plus historically inspired patterns, glyphs and other graphic elements.

While it all comes together as unmistakably modern, the nods to nostalgia were completely intentional – retaining some classic colours, pulling patterns from the original collection and refreshing the iconic star, to name a few. Many of the dolls’ original millennial fans are now parents themselves.

“The tweaks that we made felt like we were going back and mining for gold within the brand. It was not about bringing stuff in. We did a lot of research about other dolls and brands right now, and we didn’t try to steal or even copy other brands. Instead, we tried to just find the stories in American Girl and bring back what was authentic in a way that felt true to today and felt true 20 years ago, and hopefully will be true 20 years into the future,” Oberman says. “I do feel like there’s a particular kind of human who gravitates toward American Girl. There’s a spirit, an intellectual intensity, a drive and curiosity.”

And that includes a lot of Oberman’s team, she says.

“[When we got the project] Every woman on my team lost their mind. We have American Girl dolls all over the office now. We have one woman on my team who became a graphic designer because there was an American Girl doll who had a graphic design book!” she says.

What to do when you mine for gold and do not find the story? Do you just not take it on?

“Yes … We’ve done that. If I can’t tell the story properly, that’s not good for anybody,” Oberman says.