The Indian toy industry is facing a very great challenge from the flood of cheap and high-tech toys in the Indian market from Chinese manufacturers. Along with these, there are multinationals like ‘Funskool’ and ‘Barbie’, etc., who can afford to market their products to woo growing child consumers. There is a sudden awareness in the Indian toy industry to take advantage of ‘design strategies’ to beat these competitions.

To arrive at these design strategies, the Indian children in all their variety have to be studied and insights gathered, with respect not only to what kind of toys or games suit their needs but also as to what are the new emerging markets and what are their potentials. But dealing with children can be a real challenge, especially with the lack of comprehensive data available about Indian children’s choices and behaviors. Add to this the diversity of the markets, right from the rural to the metropolitan, and the relative socio-economic cultures the children belong to, and what we get is a very complex situation with no point of reference to start from. Thus, the idea of a broad, comprehensive study across the socio-economic spectrum was formulated as a response to the above-mentioned needs.