Special Feature
Playmobil
Playmobil invites everyone to ‘Join the Party’ As Playmobil prepares to celebrate its landmark 50th anniversary, the toy company is preparing to roll out a raft of party-themed activations and events that everyone can get involved with. Rachael Simpson-Jones caught up with head of Marketing, Jamie Dickinson, to find out how Playmobil has remained relevant throughout the years and what the future holds amidst the ever-evolving toy landscape.
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Jamie Dickinson
here are a number of toy companies and brands celebrating anniversaries this year, but at 50 (and nifty as ever) Playmobil definitely has something to shout about. According to Jamie, who’s been with the company for 17 years and counting, the landmark anniversary is a testament to fact that Playmobil has always had a winning formula – and has stuck to it for the past five decades. “A gentleman named Hans Beck designed the first Playmobil figures way back in 1974: a Knight, Construction Worker, and a Native American,” Jamie explains, when asked how the company came into being. “They were posable, could sit, stand, ride a horse. Brandstätter, the company that owns Playmobil, took Hans’ idea and ran with it and for the past 50 years the figure has remained central to everything the company does, even while Playmobil built out the world around them with cars, planes, police stations, schools, farms and so on. There might be the odd animal-themed set here and there that doesn’t include any, but generally speaking, the vast majority of sets we produce will always contain at least one figure.” When I say Playmobil has stuck to its formula, I mean it. Even today, if you were to come across an original 1974 Playmobil figure, you’d find it compatible with modern-day
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play sets and accessories, and if you took a figure produced last week, you’d discover it’s compatible with all the 1974 accessories. The look of the figures may have changed a little, and the range has undoubtedly become much broader in order to fully represent 21st century societies, but what makes a Playmobil figure a Playmobil figure has remained fundamentally the same. This, Jamie says, is why there’s a lot vintage Playmobil lurking in the lofts of parents and grandparents across the country, waiting to make its way back into the toyboxes of today’s kids. Generally speaking, Playmobil’s themes can be divided into two groups: fantasy (think princesses and dragons, fairies and mermaids) and everyday (zoo, water park, grocery store, circus). Because of this, Playmobil has found that its toys particularly resonate with neurodiverse children who find the immersive role-play opportunities they provide to be therapeutic and instructive. Parents and grandparents use Playmobil sets within the familiar surroundings of their own home to help children understand and cope with upcoming life events, such as a trip to the hospital or arrival of a sibling, which builds even more trust and respect for the brand. Jamie adds: “We’ve even heard lovely stories about neurodiverse children that have said their first word while having fun with Playmobil.” What also sets Playmobil apart from many other toy
