A Study of the Make-up of Children's Toy Collections

Abstract : This paper is a summary of research into the make-up of toy collections for children under the age of six. The research was conducted by GREC (Group for Research into Educational and Cultural Resources) at the University of Paris-Nord under the direction of Gilles Brougère, and financed by the "Fisher Price Observatoire" This research combines an analysis of data on toy consumption together with a qualitative study. The data are derived from a panel of consumers assembled by NPD in 1997. The qualitative study was carried out in the spring of 1998, and based on 40 in-depth interviews with mothers of children aged nine months to five years and seven months. The research is pure and is intended to provide information for French journalists. However, both NPD's data and the interviews' findings contain information about toy consumption among the under-six-yearolds in France that could be used to develop a marketing strategy. The aim of the research is to understand how a toy collection-ie all the toys available in the child's home-is assembled. Our main findings combine the quantitative data provided by NPD with the qualitative data derived from our in-depth interviews.