RALLY OF THE DOLLS AT PLAYMOBIL

Before taking a job in marketing at Playmobil, Germany’s biggest toy maker, Andrea Schauer did a little research in a local toy shop and was shocked at what she found. Piles of pink boxes and an outmoded set called “Villa 1900” with plastic figures from the turn of the century.

Despite her fear that Playmobil had lost touch with children in a world of video games, TV super heroes and electronics, she took the job on the condition that “Villa 1900” disappeared from the shelves. Then she reincarnated it as the company’s first doll house for girls, a market the Nuremberg, Germanybased company had previously ignored.

“Playmobil used to be just for boys,” says the 50-year-old Schauer, now managing director of the family-controlled company. The firm’s stalwart toy is still a castle with a drawbridge and knights and horses that fit easily in the palm of a small boy’s hand. But today, toys targeting girls make up about 35% of Playmobil’s sales, which were €452m last year, up 6% on the year before. Sales have almost doubled from €243m in 2000, the year Schauer took the helm. She adds: “For the past five years we have posted sales growth, often in double digits.”

Unlike some of its rivals, Playmobil has not moved any production to China and its main manufacturing facilities are still in Germany. The company used to have home workers in Germany bag its small parts, but that became too costly as the company grew and is now done in the Czech Republic. Playmobil also has some manufacturing operations in Malta and Spain.

“We did a small test in China once, but concluded that we could not achieve the necessary quality,” says Schauer.

In 2007, it invested €19.5m in machines to manufacture 680 new forms for its toy sets and introduced 90 new products; it’s investing around €35m this year. Playmobil has just under 3,000 employees and more than half are in Germany. It generates 68% of its sales from exports, mainly from the French and American markets.

One of the biggest marks that Schauer has made on the company is to modernise its products to ensure that the toys continue to grow with the children. During her tenure, Playmobil has not only expanded into girl’s toys, it also is trying to stay hip by introducing some electronic parts to allow kids to build moving figures. Playmobil also has a website and can be found on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Its classic construction worker figures now not only grab hammers and shovels, but also have mobile phones.

“Children have a natural way of dealing with these things. They prepare themselves for the grown-up world in the way that they play,” says Schauer. Still, the advance of electronic games and mobile phones into the lives of even small children has had a major impact on toymakers. Schauer describes it as “age compression”. In the past, she says, Playmobil could market to children from toddlers to budding teenagers. But the older group has now been lost to electronics: “Our target group is three- to- nine-yearolds. In that age group, the PC is interesting, but not dominant. From about the age of 10 they start asking for phones and Game Boys.”

As Playmobil launches its Christmas marketing drive, the focus of adverts will be boy’s fantasies of dragons, castles and knights. For the girls, the dollhouse will make room for an elaborate set that replicates the experience of going to school for the first time. The purpose of the toys, says Schauer, is to let the kids act out roles to process their new experiences.

It’s also about selling larger, elaborate toy systems. “We think parents and the extended family are willing to spend more for a toy that children spend time with,” says Schauer. “These sets can be expanded with additional components and are made to be the central focus in a child’s playroom.”

Clearly, for Schauer the business of making toys is not child’s play.