That toy is mine!

I wouldn’t say I do a lot of window shopping.  And I certainly don’t get stopped in my tracks very often when I do.  So it’s kind of hard to explain what happened to me last week… Channeling my inner-five-year-old spirit, I came across a toy that I just had to have right then and there!  And where the five-year-old me would have had to create an impassioned speech to my father or mother before we walked out of the store, I had the joy of pulling out a credit card while saying to myself “yes, you can now afford this toy… particularly because you haven’t bought yourself a child’s toy in about 30 years.”  So what happened?  I’d say a couple of things have come together to make the automoblox idea particularly compelling:

1.  Great design can transcend age and gender.  (My four-year-old daughter loves this car as much as I do.)

2.  Human insight is always more powerful than “consumer” insight.  All people like to create, even if they’re not very good at it.  This toy encourages creation by inviting you take it apart and conceive a new configuration. 

3.  People connect with stories more than products.  The designer’s story is prominently played up in the packaging… a frustrated “real car” designer who wanted to reinvent a category.

4.  Material matters.  There’s nothing “cheap” about this product… from the solid wood to gorgeous, molded resin… it’s just a delight to hold in the hand.

So how come this sort of experience doesn’t happen more often?  Why aren’t there more products out there that follow these simple truths?  Maybe they’re out there and I’m missing them.  But this was definitely a once-in-a-decade kind of experience for me.  (Or maybe I’m overstating it… my Father’s Day gift this year is a new Arbor blunt-nose longboard.  Sweeeeeeet!)