In an era of 3D electronic games and visual excitement, educators and parents alike have been urging for more choices of toys that can enrich hands-on construction skills to train up their kids’ sensory motor ability and creative thinking. To address this market, Neu Kreation Ltd., a Hong Kong toy maker, has been dedicated to developing what the company terms as “construction toys”, a series of rolling dice track sets that tap the players’ utmost creativity and concentration. With years of experience and combining feedback from customers, Neu Kreation has been able to cultivate a market niche for its toy line as distinguished from other toy categories.

“From the very beginning, we always position ourselves as a maker of ‘construction toys’. Our toys require players’ full participation and effort in setting up their own track sets, as different from many other toys which demand only minimal players’ input,” said Anthony Leung, the assistant marketing manager of Neu Kreation Ltd.

Established in 1985, Neu Kreation Ltd. remains focused on designing and manufacturing educational toys throughont the years. According to Anthony Leung, Neu Kreation emphasises five elements in designing its toys. He elaborated, “We entertain the following elements in designing the difficulty level of our toys: concentration, creativity, hand-skill, IQ and EQ. Based on these key factors, we manipulate design details in terms of the number of parts, the adjustability of the tracks, and the moving parts required to assemble, etc., to cater for players from as young as 3 years old to as old as 30+ adults.”

“In fact, players can adjust the track curves by their own ideas to challenge their knowledge on the law of physics,” Anthony Leung added.

He pointed out that the basic design of the rolling dice sets remains similar. There are numerous sets of tracks connected with a “lifting mechanism”-a battery-powered or manual-driven “tower”. The “tower” can uplift all the rolling dices to a certain height, then drop them down on the track one by one by clever exploitation of gravity. However, it is still a tedious job to tailor each design to cater for different target customer groups.

Currently, Neu Kreation’s playsets are designed for three distinctive age groups:
1. Primo I (Basic Designs, for young kids of 3 years old or above)
2. Challenge II ( More intermediate designs, for children of 7 years old or above)
3. Sophisticate III (The “Ultimate” model, for teenagers of 10-15 years old or above)

Other than these 3 basic models, the “Executivity” series is a latest innovation to address the special interest of adults who long for challenges at making sophisticated sets. According to Anthony Leung, the “Executivity” series comes with highly flexible details that allow the adult players to dream up any design possible.

He said, “The adult player will be endowed with the maximum freedom in building up his/her dream set. The design can be varied from player to player, and the players’ imagination will not be limited by any manual or step-by-step guide. We will not “pre-set” the tracks for the players. They have to twist and create their own tracks; henceforth they can challenge their own knowledge in physics to the utmost limit.”

“Even for advance players, the depth of challenge still remains. Our chief designer had been given an absolute free-hand in designing and building a super-set for display at Kenfair’s 2005 Hong Kong Mega Show held in last October, but he still spent four hours to construct the set, which was purely his own original design.”

“Not like the ‘Executivity’ series, the sets for young children will come with fewer parts and more pre-twisted tracks, or in our jargon, more ‘light’ designs, so as to match with their ability and level of mental concentration.”

Due to the highly unique nature of its creations, all of Neu Kreation’s toys are usually channeled to the market through specific importers, who will then distribute the toys to specialty shops and supermarkets. Anthony Leung remarked that such a focused nature has in fact given them a profound competitive advantage in the market.

“Since our toy lines stand out with a very unique focus, we enjoy a great competitive edge. Players for IQ toys tend to become our loyal customers. They will pursue our new models once they are hooked on to the challenges we offer. This selling point guarantees us lots of long-term business, as opposed to those fad-based toys which may make instant good-sell when the movies or some related events are going on, but will drop from the hit-sale list swiftly once the heat is over or displaced by other upcoming icons.”

“The niche factor of our specialised product line also empowers us with a good position to deal with counterfeiting in the market. It is unrealistic to say that we can stay out of being counterfeited, especially in
today’s information age, but we can stay ahead in the market with exceptional designs and high quality,” he added.

To cater for the ever-changing market, Neu Kreation is customising their model sets based on the varying demand of different importers. Anthony Leung remarked that although Neu Kreation originates most of the designs, he still has to accommodate the tastes and preference of customers from different regions in terms of materials and design outlooks.

“Some of our sets may be made of materials that can glow at night, while others are made in certain colour patterns. These decisions will be made by taking importers’ requirements and tastes in consideration,” said Anthony Leung.
Currently, Neu Kreation’s construction toys receive the most popularity in Japan, the US and Slovakia. Some buyers also come from Britain and France.But the company is now exploring new markets in some never-thought-of places. “We are now looking for the possibilities of tapping into new markets in the Eastern Europe,” Anthony Leung revealed.

To upkeep high product quality and design innovation, Neu Kreation has invested in a “large” product design team of more than 10 people. Anthony Leung said,“Since good product designs are vital to our business, we need to maintain a strong design team to lead our R&D tasks.”

Driven by persistent emphasis on quality and innovative ideas, Neu Kreation has been able to sustain an average of US$4 million overall annual sales revenue in recent years, and remarkably rolled out more than 50,000 sets in 2005. Anthony Leung concluded, “Owing to the tremendous responses and enquiries we received these months, we see a very promising year in 2006 for us. In the coming year, we continue to work on developing new versions of our sets. To our delight, the ‘Executivity’ has made a success during its initial launch. We are very confident in its market potential.”

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