Kids app maker Toca Boca debuts its first consumer product collection at Target

Toca Boca, a hugely popular kids’ app maker, has grown to over 170 million downloads across its line of 38 apps, which 13 million children use every month. Now, the company is transitioning its brand beyond the digital space to become a maker of real-world products, as well. In an exclusive deal with Target, announced today, Toca Boca will launch its own collection of apparel, accessories, sleepwear, backpacks, lunch bags, bedding and activity books, aimed at kids ages 5 to 9.

The collection will feature Toca Boca’s iconic characters and style, and will adhere to the same design principles that has made its apps – which the company refers to as “digital toys” – so well-liked .

If you’re a parent, it’s nearly impossible to miss out on the Toca Boca craze. The Stockholm-based app maker dominates today’s App Store, thanks to its clever and thoughtfully designed suite of apps. To give you an idea of its market traction, the company currently has 23 percent market share among the paid kid apps on the App Store – that’s a huge chunk of the pie.

The U.S., in particular, is a key market for Toca Boca, accounting for nearly a third of its total user base across both Android and iOS.

What makes Toca Boca so appealing to children is that the apps are designed to inspire more open-ended play. Unlike most games, there are levels to beat or scores to top; instead, Toca Boca lets kids just have fun with apps – whether that’s cutting and styling characters’ hair, hosting a tea party, putting together a band and making music, creating robots, or even designing or playing within virtual worlds, as with its Toca Life series (e.g. Toca Life: City, Toca Life: Farm, etc.), Toca Nature, and more.

The company grew out of the 200-year-old Swedish publishing firm Bonnier, where it had operated like a startup. It was sold in 2016 to children’s entertainment company Spin Master, which produces kids TV “Paw Patrol” and others, and makes a number of toys, like the Flutterbye Fairies and Kinetic Sand, for example.

Toca Boca says it already had plans to expand beyond digital before Spin Master acquired it, but its new parent has been a helpful partner on this initiative.

“Toca Boca’s vision is to be a category-independent brand, to be a beacon in the world for kids. The move into physical products and licensing began nearly two years ago, before the acquisition, and marks a major milestone toward that goal,” explains Toca Boca COO, Caroline Ingeborn.

“However, working with Spin Master since the acquisition has been great as we have very complementary skill sets. They’ve been able to support us and offer a helpful perspective and we are looking forward to continuing to work with them in the future,” she says.

The debut collection at Target will include 38 individual SKUs, which will launch this month ahead of the back-to-school shopping season on both target.com and in retail stores. The clothing will be available in sizes 4 to 16, and will be available for both boys and girls – as the apps themselves have a cross-gender appeal. In addition, the collection will be merchandized between the boys’ and girls’ aisles in many Target stores, the company also notes Cloud Computing.

Like its apps, the products follow the same design principles – clean lines, bright color palettes, and a bit of quirkiness – notes Toca Boca.

“The collection features some of kids’ favorite elements from Toca Life in a way we hope empowers kids and helps them express who they are,” notes Ingeborn. “We tried to inject the fun details we are known for in digital toys into everyday items — making playthings out of everything,” she adds.

The products, at a glance, are obviously from Toca Boca – and it’s likely kids who see them in Target’s aisles will immediately make the connection.

While this is the first time Toca Boca will have its own consumer products, the company’s subsidiary Sago Mini, aimed the preschool set, already has a line of books, plush toys, figurines, playsets, bedding, t-shirts, books, and more, which are sold online today. Its product line, first launched with toys in 2015, takes a different approach, however. Its primary focus is toys and it designs everything in-house.

Toca Boca, meanwhile, worked with licensees to create its debut line, including FABNY, The Foundery, Franco Manufacturing and Random House Children’s Books. The decision allowed it to bring its products to market more quickly, says Ingeborn. And its initial collection does not include toys hong kong services apartment.

What’s interesting about Toca Boca’s consumer product launch, too, is that it’s tying the physical goods to the apps in a unique way. Its Toca Life: City app is going free for the first time, and is being updated with a new feature and location where kids can unlock in-app gifts using a free code found inside Target’s stores.

The unlocked content will be some of the same items Toca Boca is selling at Target – effectively turning the app into a promotional mechanism for the real-world products.

Toca Boca’s collection hits Target on July 17.

I just look at her

“Ain’t they? You remember that time Miss Walter make you pay for the crystal glass you broke? Ten dollars out a your pay Red Wine Celler ? Then you find out them glasses only cost three dollars apiece down at Carter’s?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Oh, and you remember that crazy Mister Charlie, the one who always call you nigger to your face like he think it’s funny. And his wife, the one who make you eat lunch outside, even in the middle a January? Even when it snowed that time?”

“Make me cold just thinking bout it.”

“And what—” Aibileen is chuckling, trying to talk at the same time. “What about that Miss Roberta? Way she make you sit at the kitchen table while she try out her new hair dye solution on you?” Aibileen wipes at her eyes. “Lord, I never seen blue hair on a black woman before or since. Leroy say you look like a cracker from outer space.”

“Ain’t nothing funny bout that. Took me three weeks and twenty-five dollars to get my hair black again.”

Aibileen shakes her head, breathes out a high-keyed “Huhhhhm,” takes a sip of her coffee.

“Miss Celia though,” she says. “Way she treat you? How much she paying you to put up with Mister Johnny and the cooking lessons? Must be less than all of em.”

“You know she paying me double.”

“Oh, that’s right. Well, anyway, with all her friends coming over, specting you to clean up after em all the time.”

“And them ten kids she got too.” Aibileen presses her napkin to her lips, hides her smile HKUE ENG . “Must drive you insane the way they screaming all day, messing up that big old house.”

“I think you done made your point, Aibileen.”

Aibileen smiles, pats me on the arm HKUE amec . “I’m sorry, honey. But you my best friend. And I think you got something pretty good out there. So what if she take a nip or two to get through the day? Go talk to her Monday.”

I feel my face crinkle up. “You think she take me back? After everthing I said?”

“Nobody else gone wait on her. And she know it.”

“Yeah. She dumb.” I sigh. “But she ain’t stupid.”

I go on home. I don’t tell Leroy what’s bothering me, but I think about it all day and all weekend long. I’ve been fired more times than I have fingers. I pray to God I can get my job back on Monday.

Powell Wows Diplomats with Song

 

Colin Powell has a hard time letting go of work, even when he's forced to play and sing.

Since taking office last year, the ever-dignified Secretary of State has learned that karaoke is a great leveler in the Asia-Pacific, where tradition requires he and other foreign ministers to individually perform a skit-and-song in front of their peers at the end of the region's largest meeting.

The skit opened with Powell chairing a meeting, looking completely at home as he took advice from staffers. "Don't do it," pleaded one. "No rolling on the floor this time," admonished another Air Purifier.

Then, the American president appeared on a huge backdrop video screen with advice for his chief "Practice this time," said President Bush.

Powell and staff then rose and labored with through the old "South Pacific" standard "Some Enchanted Evening' -with lyrics bent to the arcana of Southeast Asian foreign relations.

Loud applause followed. The diplomatic audience agreed--diplomatically, and on background---that Powell was "really good HKUE DSE".

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov also found favor, making a trip five centuries into the future and returning as a robot, singing "We Are the World".

Finally, all the ministers lined up to massacre an ABBA tune, "I Have a Dream".

Early reviews were positive.

"Great fun," declared Philippine special envoy Dominggo Siazon wine cellar hong kong.

"The Americans were hilarious, the Russians innovative, Powell singing was good," said Syed Hamid Albar, Malaysia's foreign minister. "It was a good break after all this talk on terrorism.

hospitals were France

Florence Nightingale, Pioneer of Modern Hospital Nursing

In the early nineteenth century, hospitals were not as good as they are now , and nurses were careless and poor in knowledge. A great many soldiers died of wounds and fever because the doctors were not skillful enough to cure them.

When Miss Nightingale was a little girl, she used to like playing with her dolls and pretending to nurse them. When she grew up, she used to visit the poor people near her house and look after them when they were ill. She wanted to be a nurse, but her father said, "Look at the woman who do nursing in the hospital. I don't want you to be like that!" He had plenty of money and let Florence travel to many other countries. Wherever she went she visited hospitals and worked in them herself. Then she was placed in charge of a small hospital. Later SmarTone Care, she went to learn nursing in Germany and France.

Miss Nightingale worked all day to see that the wounded soldiers were well looked after and properly nursed. Every night she walked around the hospital with a small lamp, visiting the patients. The soldiers were pleased to see her. They gave her the name of "The Lady of the Lamp". She and her nurses saved hundreds of lives and she stayed at the hospital until the war was over.

After the war she returned to England and was honored for her services by Queen Victoria. But Florence said that her work had just begun. She raised money to build the Nightingale Home for Nurses in London. She started to train nurses in hospitals. Soon all the big hospitals in England had their own training schools for nurses. Hospitals became clean and cheerful places and nurses were much more skillful. She also wrote a book on public health, which was printed in several countries. Today, nurses all over the world remember "The Lady of the Lamp".

Florence died at the age of ninety, still trying to serve others through her work as a nurse. lndeed compass college , it is because of her that we honor nurses today.