Back on track: Hornby targets digital generation
Troubled maker of toy trains, planes and racing cars is mixing tech with physical play to win back ‘ipad children’, its boss tells Alan Tovey
Model trains and planes that have to be built by hand might seem outmoded in the digital age. But they tap into children’s creativity and develop family relationships in a way that video games never can, says Lyndon Davies, chief executive of Hornby.
“Our products are a great way of interacting with your children and grandchildren,” says Davies, who two years ago took the reins at the maker of train sets, Airfix models and Scalextric slot cars. “Parents as a whole have to provide activities for their children – whether that’s horseriding or taking them to the playground. What’s interesting about our brands is that they are interactive, and both children and adults relate to them.”
Father-of-three Davies, 59, arrived at a difficult time. Hornby had last made a profit in 2012 and was reeling from supply chain issues, failure to understand its market, management upheaval and boardroom rows that resulted in a battle with investors. Davies – who has spent his career in the toy industry – was installed to get Hornby back on track.
He ended aggressive discounting policies – “some of them were madness” – worked with suppliers confused by what was going on in Hornby and with whom he had existing relationships, and generally set about revamping the firm. Now what is on his mind is how Hornby – which dates from 1901 when Frank Hornby won a patent for Meccano – can be relevant in the modern age.
“We’ve got to be careful how we target customers,” he says. “I mean, if you gave an Airfix model to a six-yearold, the first thing they’d do would be glue their hands together.”
Airfix has simple “quick build” models that snap together, do not need painting and are decorated with stickers. They cost just a few pounds.
At the other end of the spectrum, the company has released a 1:24 scale, 600-part model of a Grumman Hellcat F6F-5 fighter. Davies proudly explains how it is the most detailed model the company has produced – and the first time in five years Hornby has put out a product in this scale. With a £120 price tag and requiring weeks of delicate work and painting, the Hellcat is firmly targeted at the more mature end of the company’s customer base.
“With quick build, the challenge is there, which is motivating children,” says Davies. “It’s not too easy or too difficult.”
Similarly, Scalextric slot cars are being offered in simpler forms to attract younger users. Instead of hard to control cars that can fly off corners, settings can be adjusted to keep the cars on the track, minimising the likelihood of tantrums over racing being too difficult. Easier to build tracks have also been introduced.
Tie-ups with famous brands have been agreed. Davies says he battles it out with his six-year-old grandson
‘What we do is special. People who started off on an Xbox … now want something more traditional’
with vehicles from the cartoon Wacky Races. “Who wouldn’t want to be racing as Dick Dastardly or Penelope Pitstop at that age?” he asks.
A whole series of partnerships with other film and television franchises are coming, but an idea of the heavyweight brands Hornby has been able to access is given by some of its existing links: Coca-cola and Harry Potter-themed train sets.
Hornby is also looking to marry the latest digital tech such as iphones and apps with its traditional products. Davies and his staff are tight-lipped as Hornby is still preparing to reveal it to the industry. The chief executive is due to fly to Hong Kong on New Year’s Day for the annual toy and games expo, but staff hint at plans to make products such as Scalextric more “toyetic” rather than a hobby.
Hornby has about 130 staff in the UK, most of them at its historic base in Margate, which Davies returned the business to a year ago after a five-year stay at a nearby business park.
The Ramsgate Road site is also home to the Hornby Visitor Centre, a treasure trove of modelling history in space formerly used to make the company’s products. UK production ended in 1991 and was relocated to contractors in Asia. However, in offices at the front of the building designers and engineers are toiling away on new products. It’s an enthusiast’s dream, with piled-high boxes of Scalextric cars, desks laden with model aircraft and new trains being developed.
Paul Nye, a 15-year company veteran, is product development manager for Scalextric, looking to make the cars appeal to the digital generation. “When Scalextric came out in the Fifties it was an innovative, revolutionary technology – but an out-and-out toy,” he says. “For die-hard fans it grew into a hobby. The challenge is to get it back to its roots as a toy that’s suitable for ages three and up – people born with an ipad in their hands – and then getting them to migrate to the rest of our range.” Part of this strategy is the Spark Plug dongle that lets cars be controlled from a smartphone instead of a conventional trigger hand-controller.
Nye says involving smartphones adds a layer of options, such as personalised drivers, “power-ups” and a mix of physical and digital gameplay.
“This is Scalextric going through a full circle,” he says. “When I was growing up a video games console was innovative but now everyone has one. Scalextric is a physical thing you pick up and play with – but you also learn about physics with cornering when you go too fast and come off the track, and about how things work when you assemble the track. With the digital side we are bringing it all together as well as satisfying a basic desire to race things.”
Scalextric might be looking at attracting younger customers but right now the Airfix team next door is telegraph.co.uk/ businessbriefing excited about detail. Chris Parker-joy, a designer, has a pre-production model of an RAF Vulcan bomber. To ensure it is as true to life as possible, the team laser-scanned a Vulcan in a museum, supplementing traditional poring through reference books that sometimes meant detail was fudged.
“The Vulcan is the aircraft we get the most requests for,” says Parker-joy, holding the unpainted model. “This new version is as accurate as it is possible to get. Previous models had a lot of guesswork in them.”
Taking detail to the extreme is Edd Batchelor, who has spent 30 years with Hornby and now leads the train design team. He’s using a jeweller’s eyeglass to inspect a prototype model engine before signing off on it. “People pay a lot for our products,” he says as he examines 2mm decals on the steam loco. “We’ve got to get it right.”
He thought he’d found a tiny error, with a number reversed in the decal. However, he is now satisfied after his research revealed that the (long-gone) railway firm had used a stylised font. To the untrained eye something that looks wrong, if they even notice, is actually right.
“With the research, design and tooling it takes about 18 months for us to develop a new product,” says Batchelor. “I’m not an avid modeller but what we do is special – the appeal of this sort of product could well be a backlash to people who started off on an Xbox who now want something more traditional.” 1 Business Briefing Sign up for our free daily business round-up