Twenty Something Newsflash: Your Toys are Old School

I grew up with Beanie Babies, Tamagotchis and Pogs (remember those?!).

But look out, because the twenty-somethings’ elementary school play things look as old school as your grandmother’s record player.

Welcome the Webkinz.

Taking a walk down a New Jersey beach boardwalk, I first encountered them. I was casually checking out the hermit crab collections, when my glance passed over shelves of these Beanie Baby look-alikes. I looked around, and kids were going crazy over them.

Webkinz are plush stuffed animal toys. Inside the toy is a secret code that can be used to enter the ‘Webkinz World.’ Once you register your pet in the online world, you take care of it by feeding it and giving it regular exercise. You can choose what you want your pet to wear, what its house looks like and how you want to spend your KinzCash. You can even chat with your friends’ Webkinz pets in the Kinzchat.

No longer does the Beanie Baby live alone. The days are long gone when your Tomagachi grows by itself. This toy is the intersection of real life, virtual life and social media. This is Dolls 2.0.

This generation is growing up with toys that combine the physical and virtual worlds. As the social media and technology worlds evolve and integrate into everyday life, this younger generation will be engrained with the necessity for brands to interact with them both physically and virtually- just as their toys did in 2008.

-Carla