Carve Comms. Toy Experts Amy Friedland and Scott Goldberg Offer Five Secrets to a Successful Media Strategy for Toy Fair 2025

by Carve Communications | 30 Jan 2025

Business Hacks & Tips

Toy Fair is the biggest media event of the year for toy brands. This year, it’s happening March 1-4, 2025 at the Javits Center in New York City.

For brands, it’s more than just a trade show. It’s where iconic manufacturers, inventors, and retailers come together to showcase the latest products. It also represents the chance for everyone – brands, media, content creators, and the Toy Association itself – to see the latest toy trends and products that will shape buyer behavior for the year ahead.

Carvers Amy Friedland and Scott Goldberg have represented more than 100 brands at Toy Fair.  Here are some of their tips to stand out to Toy Fair media and break through the noise:

 

1). Anchor Your Strategy to Your End Goals and Audience

 

Unlike most other shows that focus primarily on sales, Toy Fair is a unique combination of media, content creators (or influencers), and buyers.

 

That said, typically a brand is trying to achieve one of the below:

 

  • Sell-in: Securing interest from buyers and ultimately purchase orders so your product ends up on retail shelves.
  • Sell-through: Generating awareness of your products with consumers to make a purchase decision and drive actual sales.

Or, you could have some combination of the two. Regardless, identifying what you are trying to achieve, the products you feature, the reporters you target, the connections you make at the show itself, and what success looks like at the end.

 

2). Get Picky About Your “Hero” Products

 

Once you understand your ultimate goals for Toy Fair, it’s time to choose which hero products you’re going to highlight at the event.

 

Pick less than five products; ideally, three or four is the magic number. It’s tempting to choose more, but resist the urge. Less really is more.

 

“If you choose too many, you won’t be able to get through all your products,” Executive VP Amy Friedland said. “Media and creators don’t have half an hour to spend at your booth. You want to nail your top priorities.”

 

To narrow your focus, ask questions like:

  • Which are the easiest to describe? Imagine: You only have 30 seconds to hook a reporter in a loud room. What are you choosing to explain?
  • Which grab and hold attention the best? (Or the “sexiest” as Amy put it.)
  • Which are most TV-friendly & demonstrable?

Remember, there are hundreds and hundreds of booths at the show. When honing in on your hero product strategy, really take the time to get into the mindset of the media you're targeting.

 

3). Fit Your Product Into Viable Toy Trends

 

Now that you’ve pinned down the products you’re prioritizing at the show, it’s time to focus on which Toy Fair narratives fit those products. One of the best ways to do that is by identifying which toy trends are relevant to your product.

 

The Toy Association shares these trends the Saturday of Toy Fair, often by gathering data from many different companies to see what’s rising to the top.

 

Toy Fair trends determine what’s hot… and what’s not.

 

Reporters obviously care about trends, too; it’s often what makes one product worth featuring over another. Find the trends your hero products can fit into – or put your own spin on – and you will significantly boost your chances for coverage.

 

Here are a few of the latest toy trends on our radars for Toy Fair 2025:

Don’t force your products into any of these categories. Every PR pro’s nightmare is a reporter rolling their eyes as you vehemently try to explain why your products fit into one of these.

 

4). Be Prepared for Anything, Especially at the Show

 

As with every trade show, expect the unexpected. Here’s a few tips and tricks:

 

  1. Before the show, coordinate desk sides and Zoom demos. Fitting these in will help your product appear in more pre-show trend stories.
  2. Schedule appointments with the media at the event. It might be old-school, but it works. You want to get face-to-face time with reporters to see your products IRL.
  3. Prep your elevator pitches. There was a time when elevator pitches were exactly that… the length of an elevator ride. Today, you still have just as much time to hook a reporter, if not less. Make your pitch count.
  4. Plans change. Each appointment is a relationship-building opportunity with a reporter. Sometimes schedules change, so be sure to have open lines of communication so you can pivot in the event of a switch-up.

Pro Tip: In the spirit of true relationships, make conversation with the reporter at an appointment. It shouldn’t feel like a transaction. Go beyond what you need from them and ask what they’re writing about outside of Toy Fair. Later down the line, they may want your brand’s expertise.

 

5). Remember Your Media Strategy Doesn’t Stop After the Show

 

Just because Toy Fair ends doesn’t mean the chance for coverage does. Following up with reporters can solidify both immediate coverage and long-term opportunities, like setting the scene to include your product in gift guides (pitching starts in the summer).

 

Send personalized follow-ups to the reporters you met – or even missed – at Toy Fair. Scan for coverage and see which trends were most popular and use that information to refine your PR plan ahead for the year; do any of your other products fit in?

 

Be mindful of any sales opportunities stemming from Toy Fair. If you want to make the most of it:

  • Gather all the coverage you secured.
  • Use that to create a highlights sheet with a few of those links featured alongside some shots of your products.
  • Email this to any potential, existing, or hard-to-convince buyers to show them the demand you’ve created for your product.

PRO TIP: Make sure you have a strong media monitoring strategy in place – you don’t want coverage to slip through the cracks, that includes social posts, creator posts and traditional media.

Toy Fair is an opportunity to get your products noticed, build momentum, create media and buyer connections that last well beyond the show, and of course… have some fun. With some thoughtful planning, Toy Fair can be the start of a big year for your brand.

If you want more pro tips, check out Amy and Scott’s recent LinkedIn Live session!  See you at Javits!

Carve Communications New York Toy Fair Toy Trends Toys
MEME OF THE DAY

Tait & Lily, Inventors of Betcha Can't!