Event presentation
Beyond Entertainment
Kids don’t choose toys by category. They choose play by the outcomes it delivers. A framework for designing toys that meet the growing demand for skill, creative and social play.
First presented by Adam Woodgate, VP Research Solutions, at Toy Fair University, New York 2026
Built from real-time, open-ended responses from children across multiple markets, not prompted survey lists.
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What you get
Six findings that reshape a licensing strategy.
Clarity to shape strategy, foresight to spot opportunity, and data to de-risk decisions.
Kids don’t think in categories
The industry browses shelves and features; kids choose play by the outcome it delivers. That gap is where products miss.
The three demands
Skill play, creative play and social play: the outcomes children themselves describe when asked what they want from a toy.
Built from their own words
The framework draws on real-time, open-ended responses from children across multiple markets, not prompted survey lists.
Where categories blur
Why the same child moves between construction, crafting and games, and what connects those choices.
The parent test
What makes a toy resonate with the adults who ultimately buy it, alongside the kids who ask for it.
Applying the lens
How product development, brand strategy and retail buying teams can evaluate ranges against what play now demands.
“Kids don’t buy toys. They buy what play does for them.”
From Beyond Entertainment, Toy Fair University 2026
What sits behind it
The world’s largest live data source on Gen Alpha, Gen Z and their parents.
Real families surveyed
First-party data points
Global coverage
Always on, ever since
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A framework for what modern play demands, from the people designing for it.