Sponsored Content
For many leading toy brands, a school or preschool marketing strategy provides an incredible opportunity to be championed by teachers who then influence millions of parents and kids.
Hi, we’re MIR Play. We grow toy brands by integrating them with educational standards, creating customized, teacher-led classroom activities that build on toys’ key developmental benefits. We then distribute the content through a massive 40K+ network of childcare centers, elementary schools, and preschools.
So, what would an MIR Play campaign look like for your toy brand? Well, it starts with an idea. MIR Play will work with your team to understand your toy’s strengths, strategize how to best leverage them in education, and develop a school marketing campaign based on age target, markets, and budget.
The campaigns that we create for our toy clients, which include strategy, creative, production, distribution, and management, are varied and customizable. Here are some of the tools we use:
Teacher Lessons and Class Activities
These are the core of many of our campaigns. These Lessons integrate the toy into learning and are available digitally or in hard copy. They tie into curriculum expectations and leverage your toy’s developmental benefits.
Custom Content for Parents
Parents really do care about what their child learns in school. This communication method allows us to bring fun and learning from the classroom into the home. It’s also an opportunity to communicate the unique benefits of the toy credibly.
Activities for Kids
Coloring books, puzzles, and other fun activities get kids independently involved with your toy brand and excited to show mom and dad their creations and achievements.
Toy Branded Premiums
Elements like stickers and temporary tattoos are a great way to get kids fired up about your toy and greatly increase the chance of it becoming a viral schoolyard phenomenon.
Classroom Posters and Signage
These are daily reminders of your toy, its involvement in schools, and investment into early childhood education.
Toy Seeding and Trial
Brands have an option of seeding toys in schools for hands-on experience and connection to in class lessons and activities.
Digital and Social Amplification
Downloadable content, contests, and social amplification are great ways to increase engagement and get your brand in front of even more eyeballs.
So, why should you promote your toy brand in educational channels?
- Teachers become trusted ambassadors for your toy
- A school marketing campaign influences both parents and children
- Campaign targeting is precise and can be based on the child’s age, market, household income, or language
- The reach is unparalleled. There are over 8 million families with young children in MIR’s North American school and preschool networks
- Campaigns can harness the power of the schoolyard social network
- Our programs allow the benefits of the toy to be communicated in a highly credible way. Or, as one parent said, “If that toy is good enough to be in my child’s classroom, it must be good enough for my child.”
Want to learn more about this innovative marketing approach? Check out our quick explainer video.
If your brand is looking for a new way to influence whole families and future customers, email Director of Communications Julia Stone at julia@mircommunications.com, and we can chat!
