With new technologies emerging every year, examining the role toys and technology play in children’s lives is essential. How can manufacturers create toys that appeal to today’s children?
The easy answer is that children like to interact now, more than ever, with smart devices. So, to design a toy that meets the needs of today’s children, we have to become more innovative — one way to do this is to have your product speak to the consumer, literally. What we’re referring to, of course, is talking toys.
In this article
- Why Are Talking Toys So Popular?
- Four Skills Interactive Toys Help Develop in Children
- What Makes a Great Talking Toy Voice?
- The Future of Talking Toys
- The Evolution of Talking Toys
Enter character voices. This is where the voice actor truly shines and is given a plethora of challenges, including voicing multiple diverse characters for talking toys, bending the limits of their voice, and digging deep to create unique and authentic voices that will resonate with their audiences on a large scale. Did you know that there are adult voice actors who specialize in crying like a 3-week-baby? From iPad board games to learning apps for kids, the voice actor reigns supreme when it comes to character voice-overs, especially characters for toys.
These voice-overs are also some of the most memorable. Think back to your favorite toy when you were a kid. Did it have a voice and could speak to you?
This is also one of the most competitive fields of voice-over because of the caliber of talent performing and the prestige of the characters they portray.
If you are a toy designer or creative agency wondering how to market talking toys to children, you must first understand what makes a great talking toy and where the future of talking toys is headed.
Why Are Talking Toys So Popular?
Talking toys provide a level of interactivity that children crave. Interactive toys benefit children by helping them develop crucial skills.
Four Skills Interactive Toys Help Develop in Children
Here is a breakdown of the four key skills that interactive toys can help develop in children.
1. Motor Skills
Interactive toys help improve children’s motor skills by developing particular body parts like arms, fingers, and hands.
Example: Fingerlings are an excellent toy for developing motor skills. These monkey dolls encourage kids to perform different actions, such as patting the doll on the head to make various sounds and actions.
2. Social Skills
Some interactive toys ask children questions that require a response. These toys help children develop their ability to think through questions and answer them in ways that make sense to their counterparts.
Example: Great examples include games that can be played on smart devices and require children to respond, such as Esme & Roy, an interactive game using Alexa (read more below).
3. Language Skills
Interacting with toys allows children to learn new words and properly string together sentence structures. These interactive toys are beneficial if you want your child to learn another language (maybe one that is not your first language).
An example of an interactive toy that helps children practice their language skills and learn to communicate effectively is LeapFrog’s Chat & Count Smartphone.
4. Cognitive Skills
Cognitive skills need to be mastered from a young age. While having an outstanding mind is good, logic is necessary for everyday interaction. Cognitive skills can be developed through games that include memorization and recognition of colors, numbers, shapes, etc.
Example: LeapPad, an interactive device that allows children to work through different math, language and problem-solving equations.
What Makes a Great Talking Toy Voice?
We now know how talking toys came to exist and why they are becoming increasingly important, but if you are a client looking to hire a voice for a toy or a voice over talent looking to land the role, what should the toy sound like?
Voice actor and coach Shelly Shenoy, recently the voice of a toy robot named ZEST, has a few tips and hints on what makes a great talking toy voice.
Using the robot Zest as an example, Shenoy describes her voice as ‘adult-sounding, cool, hip, edgy and maybe sometimes a bit silly.’
Clients are increasingly looking to create talking toys that sound realistic and make the toy relatable to their target audience. If you are looking for the perfect talking toy voice, you should be mindful that the end audience/user will want to hear a natural-sounding voice.
“In the audition routine for toys, a lot of [voice] actors automatically revert to a very old-school cartoony character, but it seems more often than not [the client] is looking for very real voices,” says Shenoy.
She believes that you can book a toy gig by first getting some training in animation voice-over, as you will usually be using a character voice for the toy (note: Character voices are not the same as cartoony voices).
After the training, there are two key things you should pay attention to.
Research
“Look up the company and past toys they’ve created, and [listen] to what those toys sound like,” says Shenoy.
Pay Attention to the ‘Givens’
“Pay attention to what I call ‘the givens,'” says Shenoy. “What does the toy look like, what are the specs, what is this for?” Additionally, other qualities like how old the toy is, where it is from, and the lines they speak can also reveal a lot about how their voice should sound.
The Future of Talking Toys
Sales of interactive toys are expected to continue growing, especially as technology advances. According to Juniper Research, a UK-based analyst firm, annual smart-toy sales worldwide were expected to grow from about $2.8 billion in 2015 to $11.3 billion by 2020.
Companies like Xandra are looking for innovative ways to integrate learning and play for children with smart devices. In collaboration with 360i and HBO, Xandra has created interactive games for children called Esme & Roy, a new Amazon Alexa skill.
“We’re a voice-first platform, we really needed to lean into the audio. This is all about using audio and sounds and dialogue and character to make that connection to the user,” says Xandra’s CEO and Founder, Zach Johnson.
The Esme & Roy Game
Esme & Roy is a game geared toward children around three. Because this is when children are still working on their communication skills, the game has been developed with their ability level in mind. For instance, if the child is unclear about the directions or responses given in the game, Esme & Roy won’t ask the participant to repeat themselves. Instead, the game will keep the story moving to make the user feel like they have agency in the game.
Since younger players are also still working on their articulation skills, the voice match functionality — which registers the users’ response to judge if their answer is right or wrong — is slightly more forgiving. It doesn’t have to be a perfect match for the child to get the question they are being asked correctly. The same game design and interaction can be applied to older users, who may also require more time to correctly answer each question and play the game at their own pace.
“[The game] is really using audio to give kids a sense of where they are in a skill and give them an audio cue when input is expected,” says Johnson.
If the answer is correct, you get a happy response from the character. If it’s incorrect, you get constructive feedback; humor is often used to deliver this.
But what about the characters’ voices? If the game is played through a smart speaker, such as Alexa, is the voice that of Alexa? The answer is no. The voices of each game are unique and distinct, and voice actors voice them.
SpongeBob SquarePants Games
In one of Xandra’s SpongeBob SquarePants games, the original show actors provide the characters’ voices to preserve the characters ‘fidelity.
So, what is the future of gaming for children? “I think as the technology of both software and hardware continues to advance and improve, it’s on us as an industry and as designers to figure out how to best work in those mediums and those channels,” says Johnson.
The Evolution of Talking Toys
You can’t discuss the talking toys of today and the future without considering their origin stories. The first types of talking toys were dolls, which were manufactured right after the Industrial Revolution. Since then, toy manufacturers have been working to make increasingly lifelike dolls that offer interaction and companionship. Toys have moved from simply being able to speak to interacting on a much more profound level with children who play with them.
1890: Edison’s Phonograph Doll
Thomas Edison invented this doll with a removable phonograph that allowed it to sing one nursery rhyme each time the handle was cranked. It spent more years in the experiment phase than on the seller’s market and was not considered a great success. The voice didn’t sound natural and was sold for the equivalent of $200 in U.S. dollars today! Customers also had an issue with the doll’s mouth not moving when it spoke.
Voice Used: The story says that a female factory worker recorded the doll’s voice. She recorded a few phrases to be used as the doll’s voice.
Although unsuccessful, the doll got the gears to inspire users to follow suit.
Hear Edison’s talking doll for yourself in this video:
1960-1990: More Advanced Talking Dolls
Over the next thirty years, talking dolls advanced considerably. Dolls like Chatty Cathy (designed by Mattel) contained strings that, when pulled, allowed the doll to utter various phrases. Chatty Cathy had eleven pre-programmed phrases.
Voice Used: The success of this doll is often attributed to the fact that the voice of Chatty Cathy dolls was the voice of popular voice actor June Foray, known as the voice of Grandmother Fa in the hit Disney movie Mulan, as Rocky in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and many other characters over her 85+ year career.
2000s: My Friend Cayla
Manufacturers labeled My Friend Cayla as the world’s first interactive doll by manufacturers. Like Apple’s Siri, the doll connects to the internet via Bluetooth and functions through voice control. The doll also comes with an app that can be used to play games with her.
Voice Used: The voice used sounds a bit more robotic but is meant to sound like a 7-year-old girl. It uses text-to-speech technology to respond to and interact with the user.
Present Day
Today’s talking toys have advanced from talking dolls to more interactive toys called ‘smart toys.’ Their sole purpose is no longer to provide companionship. Today’s toys involve a much more sensory experience that enables children to learn something from them.
Think of devices like Leap Frog that include gamification and allow more user interaction and learning.
Need inspiration for your talking toy voice? Check out these talking toy sample scripts to get started.
What interactive devices do you have or have you come across? Please share with us in the comments!
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