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The hottest toys trending this Christmas

by | Dec 14, 2016 | Media Monitoring, Social Media, Twitter

Gift factory illustration: 2016 Toy Tracking

With the holidays fast approaching, both parents and children alike are in prime toy buying (and toy daydreaming) mode. So what better time to release our annual Twitter top trending toys tracker?

As in previous years, we’ve tracked mentions of all items on this year’s Toys R Us Fabulous 15 list, but this year we used Agility PR Solutions software to also track some of the key influencers likely to help shape toy buying decisions this year.

After all, we all know that social media has a big impact on consumers. Just last week our friends at Bulldog Reporter reported that one in three people’s gift decisions are influenced by social media (along with the fact that 30 per cent of survey respondents say they are likely to post on social about their gifts).

Top trending toys

Three Hatchimal toys: 95% share of voice

Most holiday seasons feature a must-have gift – last year it was Guitar Hero Live, and in 2014 it was the Snow Glow Elsa doll. This year that toy is the Hatchimal.

The Furby-like creature was created by Canadian toy company SpinMaster Ltd. and generated a whopping 95 per cent of toy related Twitter buzz of the top 15 this year (they’ve proven so popular that the company was forced to post an online disclaimer for agitated buyers dealing with empty shelves).

It seems no one was prepared for this toy’s popularity – not even SpinMaster — as stores everywhere have been continuously sold out of this year’s biggest toy.

 

Shoppers are going to desperate lengths to get these toys, in some cases paying over six times the retail price and camping out in front of stores.

Some business-savvy consumers have even resorted to scalping Hatchimals: author Sara Gruen reportedly bought $23k worth of the items to resell them, which backfired when outraged parents refused to buy them.

Considering the enormous weight of Hatchimals Twitter chatter, though, we looked closer to see which other items were getting traction after removing this item from the analysis:

Selfiemic made up 59 per cent of mentions in the new dataset, followed by Little Live Pets Snuggles My Dream Puppy with 17 per cent, and the Sky Viper Drone with 15 per cent of mentions.

Pie Chart: Share of Voice by top trending toys

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Social influencers on toys

But who drove the toys conversation most this year?

Chart: Retweet reach by brands

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Our top trending toys analysis showed that @verynetwork, a retail website based out of the UK, had the most influence based on retweet reach (with a reach of 6,890,075). These sky high retweet numbers were a result of a contest the retailer ran; twitter users were encouraged to retweet the contest details in an effort to win the hard to come by Hatchimal.

Chart: Retweets by brands

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@verynetwork was also the most retweeted influencer in the toys conversation. But while these influencers had the most tweets and tweet reach, mainstream media sources were the top influencers by total followers.

Chart: Followers

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@Time was the biggest influencer by total followers with over 12M after it shared a story about Hatchimals returning to Walmart. @HuffPost also had a big influence in this year’s toy conversation with over 8M followers.

Chantelle Brule

Chantelle Brule

After receiving her Master's in Communications from Carleton University, Chantelle brought her research experience to Agility's Media Insights team as a data analyst. She's particularly good at what she does.