How Play Influences Child Development: Insights from Amanda Gummer

EP016_05-03-24_Amanda Gummer

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Toy Business Unboxed, your gateway to the secrets of the toy industry. Here, Jason Hsieh, a toy entrepreneur and expert. “Every product we develop is really inspired by some of the real life experience that we have with our son.” “Major retailers.” “Yeah, yeah.” “We think this is cool.” “The thing with Amazon is just, It become more and more complicated over the years.” “Yeah, maybe you can also consider to create more online resources.” will guide you through the enchanting world of toy design, marketing, and manufacturing. Now let the unboxing begin!

Jason Hsieh: Hello. Welcome back to another episode of Toy Business Unboxed. In today’s episode, we’re going to explore the dynamic world of toys, play, and also child development. We are thrilled to welcome Amanda, the founders of Good Play Guide, and also FUNdamentally Children. Get ready to have a fascinating discussion as we discover the secret of unlocking the power of play and also enhancing children’s life through research back [00:01:00] practice and processes. Thank you so much for joining us on today’s episode, Amanda. 

Amanda Gummer: Oh, thank you for having me, Jason. It’s great to be here. 

Jason Hsieh: Can you first share with our audience, your journey? What lead you here to become and doing all the different amazing things you’re currently doing within the toy industry?

Amanda Gummer: It was never a plan. I wanted to be a marine biologist, but my dad used to sell toys in the way back in the sort of 70s and 80s. And he used to work for Powertoy, then Mattel, and then he became a sales agent. And when he was selling the toys, me and my brother were little, and we would get to test them out and see how they go.

And then as a teenager, sometimes I’d help him out at an event by demonstrating toys, or even like dressing up as one of the character costumes. I grew up in the toy industry, but it was never a plan of mine to enter it. But I did psychology at university and loved it. And then I did a PhD and alongside the PhD I did a teaching qualification.

And there were a few things that just [00:02:00] happened along the way that made me realize the value of play. I was running a charity in London that helped children Or families at risk of breakdown and play was a really powerful tool in helping parents understand how to play with their kids, giving children opportunities to play to give the parents some support and everything.

So that really solidified for me the importance of play. After that, I think it was more a question of going back and looking at my roots. I was working in Hong Kong for a couple of years, teaching English to children with additional needs. I was developing educational programs out there, but they were extracurricular, so again, needed to be play based to see if kids had been in school for a whole day. So it was after that, that I started doing some research because actually one of the companies my dad worked for wanted to know if a toy that did well in Japan would work in the UK. So I said, Oh, PhD in psychology, how hard can it be to run a focus group? So, I did, and because I got the child development input into it, so it wasn’t just, here’s your data, how many kids [00:03:00] said this, and 20 percent of children felt like this. It was the interpretation 80 percent of children said this is because at this age, kids may be doing this and that and the other, and therefore if you make these changes, or if you market it in this way, it might be helpful.

So because the toy company had never had that from a market researcher before, they’ve had the data, but they’ve never had the interpretation or the application. They were like, Oh, this is great. Can we, do some more? And it was that organic. I, had very young kids at the time, and I was able to build the business around looking after them and I feel very lucky that 20 years later, I am where I am today. 

Jason Hsieh: I think you have like two kind of unique aspect of your business. Can you talk about how those two initiative play off each other’s and what inspired you to create those initiatives that you currently have?

Amanda Gummer: I was a freelance researcher for 10 years or so. And around 2009, 2010. I got the idea to set [00:04:00] up a present finding site. My kids were at school and the parents of their friends were asking me for advice whether toys were going to be any good for the kids because there’s a lot of pester power and the kids were sort of asking for stuff they’ve seen on tv. But there wasn’t a way of parents assessing whether it was going to be any good or not and at the same time i’ve been doing research for toy companies for 10 odd years and they were like this is great but by the time you’ve recruited and hired a venue and done all the sort of the admin and logistics it actually ends up being quite time consuming and quite expensive which is not something you can get away from.

And they were like, is there an easier way for us to get some quick and dirty feedback on how kids engage with our products? So I had those two things going on at the same time. And I created a website, the initial one was called My Two Front Teeth, which I learned a lot about branding because if you know the song, All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth, then you get it because it was a sort of a present finding website.

But for a lot of people who [00:05:00] don’t know the song, they thought we were something to do with dentistry or hygiene or something. So I learned a lot about branding and quickly changed it to The Good Toy Guide. And that’s the legal name of the business. But we combined the research, which is FUNdamentally children. As the, website evolved, we added in apps and educational products and it became the good play guide. So there’s two brands that we operate and are FUNdamentally children and good play guide, but they are basically part of a journey.

So we help companies understand children. How children engage with their products or their brands. We then check that they do what they say they’re going to do in terms of our accreditation and then using our website, we help them shout about it. So it’s a continuous journey. It’s just, there are two ways in, if you like. 

Jason Hsieh: That’s very interesting. I like the way you have this set up. And I know you’re also the independent chair of the association of the play industry. What are some of the challenges or you have encountered in the past as part of your role in [00:06:00] that association?

Amanda Gummer: The Association of Play Industries is focused on outdoor play. So it’s playground manufacturers and helping funding for anything community based is really difficult. So supporting members in innovation, but it’s about advocating and highlighting the benefit of play to policy makers, educators and community leaders, because I absolutely believe that play is the silver bullet.

And I think we probably wouldn’t be in some of the mess we’re in the world today if some of our leaders had played a bit more when they were younger. So I’m all for getting play into communities. It’s the prioritization. 

So my biggest challenge in that role is helping policymakers or decision makers understand the importance of play.

Jason Hsieh: How do you ensure like a child facing organization take a evidence based approach to their branding, the product and the services that they provide? 

Amanda Gummer: We don’t ensure that they do because a lot of them don’t. It’s really funny to see [00:07:00] the ones that don’t and then make mistakes and then how much they value doing the research in the first place.

Basically, the earlier you do the research, the more you de risk your product development. And in toys, there’s a lot of cost involved in tooling up and prototyping and all that sort of stuff. So if you can get some insight at the concept drawing stage, and you know that something’s not going to work or you need to tweak something. It’s really cheap to tweak it when all you have to do is redraw something. It’s not so cheap to fix it when you’ve got 50 000 of them on a container ship. 

So it’s about de risking the development process by understanding your audience. Especially licensed products where there is a license that is really popular and it’s enjoyed by say six and seven year olds, and then the toys come out and the master toy licensee they makes toys that are for four and five year olds and there’s a mismatch or vice versa. Understanding your audience and understanding who it is that’s [00:08:00] watching a program but also what is it about the program that they’re watching that the kids are really relating to? So what sort of toys should you be making? Is it a playground craze? Is it an educational sort of play with mother kind of brand. Is it a babysitter brand that just keeps the kids quiet? What is it about the brand that the kids are enjoying? Because that really does inform your product development. 

Jason Hsieh: Can you walk the audience through like, how does your accreditation process work for the toys and what are the criteria that you use to evaluate them as well? 

Amanda Gummer: Yeah, of course. So we have our own accreditation, which is good play guide. We test toys on multiple occasions. We rate them for fun, ease of use and skills developed, and you have to get nine out of a possible 15 in order to be included in the guide. Get the accreditation, it’s for the life of the product.

It’s an accreditation, not a PR award. We’re very supportive of companies that don’t make the grade on the first time and they get to resubmit within 12 months for free. So [00:09:00] we test it with kids and experts and we get that comprehensive review. Clients are buying the review so they can go in at any level. There’s an entry level price and then there’s more in depth information that you get for the more detailed reviews, but alongside own accreditations, we also run accreditation programs for the toy association in the States for their steam toy accreditation, that we developed the framework for that. The methodology is, very similar because we are passionate about the way that we do the reviews. My background’s academic psychology and I have methodology drilled into me at university. So I’m very particular that it has to be what observing kids playing naturally. It has to be multiple children on different days so that you’re not vulnerable to a kid just having a bad mood. You’ve got to have that robustness, and if it’s natural settings, it’s not, hey kids, what do you think of this new toy? It’s put the toy in a natural environment and watch how they engage with it.

All the methodology for the different accreditations [00:10:00] is roughly the same, but the kind of report that you get at the end differs. We have the STEAM accreditation program for the Toy Association, and we’re just about to launch. We’ve just finished developing the framework for a new accreditation for mental, emotional, and social health. So MESHhelps.org is a not for profit set up in the US and they approached us to develop the framework. We’re just in the process of, there’s the pre buys are open or the pre sale is open for people to submit products. 

Jason Hsieh: That one I’m very, interested because my entire brand is about emotional, social learning. That’s what I designed. I designed sensory toys. So if you can also talk a little bit about how is that accreditation process different than the other ones that you currently also helped design? 

Amanda Gummer: So, it’s different in that it hasn’t launched yet. So we’re doing that. We’re starting over the summer with a view to the first batch of accredited toys being announced in September. 

The process is still the same. Multiple toys observed on multiple occasions [00:11:00] with using multiple kids. The Importance of the MESH toy accreditation is it’s not just about helping kids learn to soothe themselves if they’re upset. That’s crisis management and that’s a part of it. But actually, the MESH accreditation is looking for toys that build skills that support resilience. Things like problem solving and adaptation and communication, so they’re all things that children learn when they’re not in crisis mode and they’re not upset. When the next challenge comes along, they’re better able to deal with it.

It’s a really important definition for toy manufacturers to understand that it’s not just about a comfort toy. It’s about helping children build that really important resilience. 

Jason Hsieh: One of our product, so this is a selfish question. We have a product it is a writable weighted lap pad. You can write on it using a water pen. This is our unique design. It’s like the toy that we came up with a few years ago. Is something like that going to be a good match [00:12:00] or a good candidate for the MESH accreditation program? 

Amanda Gummer: Without watching children play with it, it’s difficult to say and I try not to prejudge any of the accreditation. But the idea is that it is intentionally building one of eight skills.

Problem solving, perseverance, you’re testing me here if I can remember all eight, problem solving, perseverance, adaptation, conflict resolution, self advocacy, self regulation, communication, and cognitive skills. So it has to pass more than one of those things in order to be accredited and it has to intentionally develop those skills. It has to be designed to do it. Something like a ball, you could say a ball could develop cognitive skills because you can measure how fast it rolls or you can learn about gravity or whatever, but it’s not designed to do that. So without some instruction cards or something telling you to do those activities, you’re not going to learn those particular skills.

So the point of the accreditation is that it’s not whether a toy can [00:13:00] develop a particular skill. It’s about, is it designed to do it? So your weighted lap table? 

Jason Hsieh: It’s a pad, it’s a weighted blanket, it’s a portable weighted blanket you can write on using a water pen. So it’s an interactive weighted blanket.

Amanda Gummer: Okay. So just off the top of my head, you’ve got the weighted blanket, so that helps with self regulation. If you’re feeling a little anxious, you pull the blanket on and you feel, you learn that you pulling the blanket on helps you calm down. Being able to write on it could help with self expression or self advocacy or communication skills. So there is without seeing how the kids engage with it. I wouldn’t want to presuppose, but we’re very open about what the skills are. It needs to be a toy that kids like playing with. It needs to pass all the safety requirements and then it’s about what it does within those eight skill sets that determine whether or not it gets accredited.

Jason Hsieh: Got it. Thank you for the explanation. I just want to use one of my own products as an example. 

Amanda Gummer: Of course. Why not? 

Jason Hsieh: Why not, right? I know your research also emphasizes on the natural playing it in this [00:14:00] natural environment. How is this approach different like other traditional method and what insight does it provide for the toys brand? 

Amanda Gummer: There’s a quote from a German psychologist called Bronfenbrenner. And I paraphrase, but it’s something alike. “Our study of child development is strange kids doing strange things and strange places observed by strangers.” And the idea that you can generalize from those case studies is ridiculous. So we flip it on its head and we go, actually we just want to see what kids do. We want to understand what they do in real life. Because if you give a kid a new toy and you say, Here test this. What do you think? They’ll go, Oh, it’s great. Because in their head, you’ve just given them a nice toy, and they want to please you, and they think you want them to tell you it’s nice. They also think that maybe if they say, this one’s good, they’ll get another one. 

Jason Hsieh: True. 

Amanda Gummer: It’s not about giving kids toys and telling them to test it and give you feedback. It’s about [00:15:00] creating that natural play environment. Whether we set up something like a shop, so they choose what they want off the shelf, maybe amongst competitive products, or we just have a playroom open with different toys. Again, competitive products, really helpful to be able to see. And then when you’re talking to the kids about them, you’re down on the floor playing with them. You can talk about why they like this one more than this one.

Traditional research and focus groups, it’s not give something a score out of 10. You do that with a kid and they haven’t got a clue. It doesn’t mean anything. It has to be a concrete frame of reference. So I like Peppa Pig more than Fireman Sam because she’s wearing pink. I like Fireman Sam more than Peppa Pig because he goes on and he puts out fires. You’ve got you’ve, got that kind of frame of reference.

The younger the kids, the more you need that sort of concrete, tangible experience and I think a lot of the traditional research methods that market research companies use don’t work with kids because when you ask kids questions, you have to be able to interpret it and results through an [00:16:00] understanding of child development. If you ask children, what do you want every day for dinner? And they say pizza, We know that giving them pizza every day for dinner isn’t healthy for them. Listening to children is very different from implementing everything they say. You need to have that kind of, okay, what does that actually mean? If they’re saying they want pizza. What are they actually saying? Is it that they really like pizzas? Is it that they want a more relaxed tea time because they associate pizzas with a sort of party? Is it that they want to have more control over what they eat and they like eating with their fingers? There’s lots of different things you can get from a single answer. And that’s where our team of experts in child development can really help people understand children’s reactions to things and it’s so much more effective than here’s a toy kids give it a rating out of one to 10. 

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, because the extent of my product testing, usually I test it with my own kids. That’s my product tester for me, for my own toys. 

Amanda Gummer: So for people who are developing toys and don’t have a big budget, that’s better than nothing. [00:17:00] Do that least your testing. But you are not a representative sample.

Jason Hsieh: Of course.

Amanda Gummer: A, you’re their dad, so they’re gonna give you different feedback than they would anybody else. B, you know them so you are likely to steer them and C, they’ve watched you develop these things over time. So you’re not coming at it fresh. 

Jason Hsieh: Can you share some like memorable finding or even story from the research that you have done and how does that influence the sound of the design even for the toys?

Amanda Gummer: Okay. I’ll give you one example. The most memorable ones are always the sort of the, ah, this is going wrong, what do we do to help? There was my first computer for kids. It was a very chunky, really nice bright colors. And there was a big joystick here and a big button here. But the on off switch was so tiny, they couldn’t operate it. The kids couldn’t even switch it on because they don’t have that fine motor control at that age to be able to feel the strength in their muscles. A lot of the time we pick up early production, like faults or design issues [00:18:00] so people can go back to the factory and get those fixed before they hit the shelves.

It was a Thomas, the tank engine range. It was this beautiful range of high end wooden toys and they were launching with five or six skews, but then one of them was a hammer and peg thing, and the hammer and the pegs were too small for the holes, so you just put them in and they fell straight through.

And because we caught that early, they were able to pull that from the range and launch the others, and we saved quite a lot of embarrassment there. And then, my other favorite story and this is where the other side of the business really comes in because once we’ve accredited a toy. We know it’s good and we’re happy to go on record and talk about it and there was a story in the Daily Mail in the UK one of the tabloid newspapers. The story of a Toy train makes kid bald and basically had been like a little motorized toy train.

It was from VTEC and this kid had put it in a hair and the wheels were going round and then she pulled it out and it pulled out a [00:19:00] chunk of her hair. Now I don’t think we should have to put do not put in your child’s hair on the package of a toy train. I was able to go on record in the media and talk about the fact that we have, it’s a really good train. It was the two, two train. I think it was. It’s a lovely train. Really popular with the kids. I was able to go and say, hang on a minute, this isn’t the toy’s fault, that kid put the toy in the hair. Do we really want to live in that kind of a society? And it’s killed the story and it was great. The accreditation works on two ways. It works to help inform product development, but it also helps as a damage limitation in case of PR. 

Jason Hsieh: Besides accreditation, what kind of like marketing services do you also offer to the brand if they get a accredited?

Amanda Gummer: Yeah. So once they are accredited, that opens the door to a range of exclusive services, because I’m very protective of our reputation. My reputation personally, but also the company’s reputation and integrity is really important to us. So we are not a [00:20:00] sort of a mouthpiece for any brand. We get approached all the time to talk about stuff and we’re like we have to leave it, we say no, because we either don’t believe in it or it hasn’t been accredited.

We use the accreditation as a gateway to a range of services. And that can be PR quotes, it can be expert articles, it can be video content, it can be coming with us to events. It can be as speaking at launch events or doing media days, there’s a raft of PR and brand support services that we reserve exclusively for accredited toys.

And that third party endorsement is really powerful because if we’re saying we’ve tested it with kids and we know that it develops these skills and It’s good for this and kids liked it. That’s so much more powerful than the toy company saying it themselves. 

Jason Hsieh: Hundred percent. Yeah. 

Amanda Gummer: And that’s why we’re so protective of our reputation because we want that value to stay for the clients that are doing the right thing and making good toys, we want to be able to add that benefit to them. 

Jason Hsieh: And I know you have a very unique framework. I think [00:21:00] it’s called balanced play pyramid? 

Amanda Gummer: Yeah. 

Jason Hsieh: Can you explain like the core principle and how is it different than everything else in the marketplace? 

Amanda Gummer: We use the balance play pyramid as a framework really for parents initially to help them understand what their children need and we use the analogy of a balanced diet. So you have your superfoods, your vegetables, and your fruits. For me, that is active outdoor, social, imaginative, free, child led play. when kids are doing that, they are learning so much stuff. They’re using their energy, they’re developing their muscles, physically, cognitively, socially, emotionally, they’re getting it all.

On the other end of the pyramid, the small end, is the sweets and the treats, which is the solitary sedentary passive play. And that’s often screen time. Now, not all screen time is solitary, sedentary, and passive. There’s some really good stuff out there that can be educational, it can be social, it can be Pokemon Go gets kids up and about and out and about in the community. But the solitary, sedentary, passive stuff is, we treat that the way you would treat [00:22:00] sugar and chocolate. So it’s limited. And if you’ve had lots of the vegetables and the superfoods of the play diet then, a bit of screen time is fine, but you want to make sure it’s kept in proportion and there are three sides to the pyramid. There’s the what, which is what it is that they’re doing. It’s the where they’re doing it and it’s the who they’re doing it with. Because kids do need time to play on their own. They get an awful lot of benefit from playing just with their friends. But it’s also great to play with adults as well.

So having a mix of whether you’re indoors, outdoors, on the go and playing in all the different environments, and then the what it is they’re doing. Is it, imaginative free play? Is it a board game? Is it computer games? What it is. And within that pyramid, you can plot every product. This is where it sits and then you can market it effectively. And then you can be honest about where it sits in the play diet and how much time kids should be spending doing it. If they’re doing this, if they’re playing with this, what else they should be doing to help them thrive. It’s a consumer facing model but actually we’re increasingly getting take up from the toy [00:23:00] industry. That quite like it as a, frame of reference. 

Jason Hsieh: For the product development too. That kind of lead right into my next question is. 

What kind of advice would you give to other toys business owner like myself, looking to create product and toys that could positively impact children’s development? 

Amanda Gummer: So absolutely do your research and do as much as you can as early as you can. But I would take a bit of pressure off yourselves and just be like, where’s the fun in this toy? Kids love humor and slapstick. Doesn’t matter how well you design a toy, they will find different ways to play with it. So almost the more versatile a toy the more options you have for kids to make their own fun with it. As long as it’s clear, you need to make it clear to the consumer who’s buying it which is often the parent. What it is you’re selling and why it’s good for your kids. But then you know, it’s the hidden fun that’s in there, and if you can give kids that opportunity of discovery. I like the phrase wide walls and high [00:24:00] ceilings, so that wide walls means it’s as accessible as it can be, for kids who are neurotypical or neuroatypical, kids with additional needs, kids with physical disabilities as well.

So the more inclusive you make it, the wider walls you have, the more people catching it. The high ceilings means that kids can enter at any point. You meet them where they’re at and the toy allows them to develop along their pathway, whether it’s developing their fine motor skills or their memory or whatever it is that you meet them where they’re at so that they feel confident they get that buzz and that fun of playing with it and being able to do it and master it. But then you’re challenging them in sort of small steps so that they can move through. That’s when you know you’ve got a really good toy.

Jason Hsieh: That’s a really good piece of advice. We are always looking into additional idea. As a small toy brand like ourselves, the amount of capital we have is pretty limited. So we need to be very careful on what product we’re going to be developing and launching.

And just like you say in the beginning of the interview, a mistake when the product is already in the container is very, [00:25:00] expensive to fix. 

Final question I’d like to ask all the guests is, if you have to share just one piece of advice with someone that’s getting started in the toy industry, what would that be?

Amanda Gummer: Follow your heart. I think if you really believe in what you’re doing and if you know that what you’re doing is needed and beneficial for kids, then follow your heart. The toy industry is not an industry that you should be in if you’re just trying to make money. I think you should be in it to do the right thing by kids, help kids be more playful, help kids learn and develop and thrive. And I think if that is your motivation, then keep going. Cause you will get there in the end. 

Jason Hsieh: That’s a very good piece of advice that actually align with my core mission with my brand is to empower, support and educate kids with learning differences. Pretty much someone like my son that have a lot of different learning challenges and hopefully some of the toys that we develop can help them along with their own journey in life a [00:26:00] little bit. Definitely a wonderful piece of advice. 

Where can the audience find you online? 

Amanda Gummer: I’m on LinkedIn. I’m fairly active on LinkedIn. The website for Good Play Guide is goodplayguide.com and that’s got all the reviews and advice on child development and play. And for the research services, it’s fundamentallychildren.com.

Jason Hsieh: Thank you again for being on our podcast today. It has been a wonderful conversation. And I learned a few new things about child development and also toy development and design myself. It’s always a wonderful learning experience for myself as a host. 

Amanda Gummer: Oh, thank you for having me, Jason. It’s been great. 

Outro: You’ve been listening to Toy Business Unboxed, hosted by Jason Hsieh. Thank you for joining us and exploring the fascinating world of toys and the ingenuity behind them.

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