Toy Industry Experimenting with Influencer-Driven Product Innovation

While companies have turned to influencers to promote their products and drive awareness, engagement and conversion, interestingly toy companies have found that their customers also want products based on the influencers themselves.  As noted in the WSJ, one toy company, Jazwares, which makes consumer products based on Fortnite and Peppa Pig, will be releasing merchandise based on YouTube influencer channels - a preschool edutainment character called Blippi (>21m subscribers), the toy unboxing/review channel CKN Toys (~15m subscribers) and a nursery rhyme channel, Cocomelon (74m subscribers). This almost seems like the "reality TV" phenomenon taken to the "Internet" where new stars may not be filtered by traditional media, but grown organically and at a grassroots level. It will be interesting if this trend continues - which seems logical given the continuing rise of digital media consumption and influencer-driven content creation.