Audio speaker and collectable figure combination aims to change the way children listen to stories and music.
One of the hit discoveries from last month’s UK Toy Fair was Tonies, a new audio speaker and collectable figure combination, which aims to make listening to stories and songs ‘playful and intuitive’.
Launched in the UK and Ireland in October 2018, Tonies caught the eye of retailers and licensors at Toy Fair, and now the company is hoping to further grow its presence in the territory.
Available in several colours, the cube allows children aged from three to take control of how and where they listen to things. They simply place a chosen Tonie figure on top of the Toniebox and the audio content will start playing; remove the Tonie and it will stop.
There are two types of Tonie figures available. Pre-recorded Tonies play classics such as The Gruffalo and Little Red Riding Hood, or popular bedtime songs and lullabies including Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars, as well as playtime songs like Old Macdonald had a Farm.
Tonies also has educational audio content exploring the world of horses, dinosaurs and more.
Meanwhile, Creative-Tonies allow parents to record their own audio onto, or upload and host existing MP3 files via the free Tonies app.
A number of new launches are planned for February including Room on the Broom, Highway Rat and Zog.
Tonies was originally launched in Düsseldorf in 2016 and since then 150 Tonies figures have been developed, more than 700,000 Tonieboxes have been sold and five million Tonies across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, UK and Ireland.
On Black Friday in Germany last year, it was the third most searched for brand behind Apple and Samsung.
