‘Unboxing’ this year’s hot toy: The LOL Big Surprise
MOMENTS after hearing about the L.O.L. Surprise! Big Surprise on a Chicago radio station, Crystal Lessner was on the hunt for the popular – and increasingly sold out - toy.
But first, she had to figure out what it was.
She logged on to YouTube, where a 24-minute “unboxing” video clued her in.
The US$ 69.99 ( RM300) toy, she learned, is quite simple: A glittery, dome- shaped plastic case filled with 50 surprises - four dolls, along with accessories, clothing, charms and other knick-knacks - that must be individually unwrapped. But much of the appeal of the Big Surprise is in its slow reveal. It can take hours, purchasers say, to peel away the toy’s layers and figure out exactly what’s buried inside. Some dolls cry, spit or “tinkle.” Others change color in cold water.
Watching that process unfold has become a pasttime in itself, and there are thousands of L.O.L. Surprise unboxing videos on YouTube to prove it. One, a 13-minute video of a woman opening the Big Surprise has been viewed 6.1 million times since it was posted on Sept 30.
Lessner fast-forwarded her way through one of them and then set out in search of this season’s hot toy.
“I knew it was going to be a challenge to find one,” Lessner, 36, said. “But I was determined to be a cool mom for the first time in my life.”
L.O.L. Surprise! dolls - which stand for Little Outrageous Little Surprise - have become an unlikely blockbuster hit in an era of high-tech, movieinspired toys. The Big Surprise, which was released six weeks ago, is sold out online at Target, Walmart and Toys R Us and is commanding 10 times its asking price on eBay. ( Amazon.com, meanwhile, is selling the toy for US$ 116.99, while Walmart’s Jet. com is charging US$ 142.24)
The toy, industry insiders say, is one of the first to be both inspired by and created for an era of YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat. Executives at MGA Entertainment - the privatelyheld California company behind hits like Bratz, Lalaloopsy and Little Tikes - came up with the idea for L.O.L. dolls after seeing a proliferation of “unboxing” videos on YouTube. ( For the uninitiated, the videos are exactly what they sound like: footage of people, or sometimes just their hands, unpacking any host of newly purchased items, including figurines, chocolate eggs, coffeemakers and even iPhones.)
“Frankly, we were seeing these videos everywhere and thought, why not just bring an unboxing toy to these kids?,” said Issac Larian, 63, founder and chief executive of MGA.
L.O.L. Surprise! dolls have taken over Annette Nelson’s Minneapolis home.
They’re strewn across her living room, stashed in her freezer and lined up around the bathtub. Twice, her daughters, ages five and seven, took the toys to a waterpark, where the tiny plastic dolls bobbed through the lazy river, alongside the girls.
“We are all addicted,” said Nelson, who posts toy videos on her YouTube channel, Adulting with Children.
“A big part of it is the element of surprise: Which dolls are you going to get? What are they going to wear?”
MGA is tapping into the frenzy by making it easier for children to make their own unboxing videos. The company is setting up bright pink recording booths in 13 US cities, Toronto and London. The L.O.L.-branded booths, which come with a built-in claw machine and recording equipment, are partvending machine, part-video studio. Shoppers can buy the surprise, then sit down and film themselves opening it. Its message: You, too, could “become the next viral sensation.”
And of course, there’s something in it for MGA, too. Each video posted on YouTube, or selfied shared on Instagram, invariably becomes an important part of the toy’s marketing campaign.
“There was a time when you’d put your toy in a TV commercial and watch sales surge two weeks later,” Larian said. “That era is over. Kids rarely watch TV anymore - they’re all on YouTube.”
The original L.O.L. Surprise - a US$ 9.99 doll encased in seven layers of wrapping paper - quietly arrived in Target stores last year, just a couple weeks before Christmas.
There were no large- scale marketing efforts or television commercials (a first in MGA’s 38year history).
Instead, executives thought they would discreetly test the waters before a larger release in January.
It turned out to be an instant hit, with all 500,000 dolls selling out in two months. — WPBloomberg