The Kidult Boom Is Rewriting Toy Marketing — And Most Brands Are Still Catching Up

Enjoy New Media  ·  Toy Video Production  ·  Atlanta, GA

The numbers came out of Circana's 2025 year-end report, and they were hard to ignore.

After two consecutive years of decline, the U.S. toy industry grew 6% in 2025. Units sold climbed 3%. Average selling price rose 4%. All of that sounds healthy until you look at who actually drove the recovery — and the answer isn't the seven-year-old with a Christmas list.

Adults did.

Consumers aged 12 and older are now the fastest-growing segment in the entire toy market. Kidults — that somewhat imperfect shorthand for adults who buy toys for themselves — account for roughly a quarter of all U.S. toy sales. According to the Toy Association, 81% of parents in 2025 said they planned to add a toy or game for themselves to their holiday shopping list. That's not a niche. That's a consumer shift that's quietly restructuring how brands need to think about product launches, content strategy, and yes — video production.

The brands that figure this out first will own the next five years of the category.

This Isn't the Toy Aisle You Grew Up Marketing To

Here's what makes the kidult shift genuinely different from previous adult-toy crossover moments: the buyer is not just purchasing differently, they're discovering differently.

The old media model — Saturday morning cartoons, toy commercials during after-school programming — had a clear target and a clear distribution channel. Today's adult collector is finding products through TikTok unboxing videos, Instagram shelf displays, limited-drop announcements, and YouTube collecting content. Labubu blind boxes from Pop Mart racked up 24.1 billion TikTok views in 2025 alone — nearly five times their 2024 total. Jellycat practically became a lifestyle brand, doubling its annual profits largely through organic social virality.

And here's the part that matters most to anyone marketing toys in 2026: these buyers respond to identity-driven content, not product-first advertising.

When Jamie Sikorski, VP of Brand & Design at Jazwares, talks about their adult Pokémon collector audience, he puts it plainly: collecting is "expression of lifestyle, self-identification, and even financial investment." These aren't people who need to be sold to. They need to be spoken to. The creative approach that converts a 35-year-old who grew up with Pokémon is not the same approach that gets a parent to put a toy in a Target cart for their kid. Most brands are still running the same playbook for both audiences. That's the gap.

What the Data Actually Says About What's Selling

The Circana breakdown for 2025 is worth sitting with for a moment, because it tells you a lot about where video budgets should be going.

Games & Puzzles grew 37% — driven almost entirely by Pokémon. Building Sets grew 15%, propped up by licensed properties like Formula 1 and LEGO's adult-targeted collections. Explorative & Other Toys grew 20%, carried largely by NFL trading cards. Those three supercategories alone accounted for 92% of all toy industry growth in 2025.

What do all three have in common? Fandom. Licensed IP. Emotional attachment. A collector mentality. None of them are impulse buys from the clearance shelf. They are considered purchases — often premium-priced — from buyers who did their research, watched the content, and decided this product was worth it.

Toys priced between $30 and $69.99 grew 18% year over year, the fastest of any price segment. Lower-priced tiers declined. The market is moving upmarket, and the content needs to follow.

Premium price points demand premium creative. You cannot justify a $50 collectible figure with a shaky product video shot on an iPhone.

The Content Problem Nobody Is Talking About

Toy brands selling to adult collectors are caught in a strange middle ground right now. The traditional toy commercial — bright backgrounds, kids laughing, upbeat jingle — doesn't land with a 32-year-old who's deciding whether to spend $65 on a limited-edition blind box set. But the dry, product-spec-only content that might work on an Amazon listing doesn't build the kind of emotional resonance that converts browsers into collectors or collectors into brand advocates.

What actually works for this audience is something in between: cinematic, story-aware content that respects the buyer's intelligence while giving them something to feel. It's not accidental that Pop Mart's most viral moments are rooted in characters and storytelling — the Labubu doesn't succeed because it's a well-made vinyl figure, it succeeds because it means something to the person buying it.

When we produced the Stranger Things Demogorgon Plush commercial for Jazwares and Netflix, the brief wasn't "show the toy." It was "bring a feeling to life." Two brothers. A bedroom that could have been in Hawkins. A scare that turns into laughter. The product was in every frame, but the reason to buy was entirely emotional. That's the model for adult collectible and licensed toy content — emotion first, product always present, platform always considered.

That same philosophy applies whether you're launching a new trading card series, a nostalgia reissue, or a licensed collaboration with a streaming property. The content has to do more than describe the product. It has to give the buyer a story they want to be part of.

What Toy Brands Should Be Doing Differently Right Now

A few things stand out when looking at where the gap is between where the market is headed and how most brands are currently spending their content budgets.

Stop treating adult buyers like children.

The creative approach for a kidult audience needs to lean into sophistication — production quality, visual storytelling, character depth. The buyer notices when a commercial feels like it was made for a seven-year-old. It signals that the brand doesn't really understand who they're talking to.

Invest in platform-native content.

This audience lives on TikTok and Instagram, but they also stream. Connected TV advertising — Hulu, Disney+, Peacock — is where you reach the same adult collector who's rewatching their favorite franchise for the third time. A well-produced 15 or 30-second CTV ad placed against the right content can do enormous work for a licensed toy launch. This audience is paying attention.

Build for the unboxing moment.

One of the most underutilized content opportunities in the licensed toy space is the unbox itself. A well-produced product reveal video — shot with the same intention as a commercial — gives you an asset that works at launch, works on your own YouTube channel, and gives creators content to respond to. It also signals to retailers that you understand how product discovery works in 2026.

Think about sell-in as a storytelling opportunity.

A retail sell-in video isn't just a buyer deck brought to life. Done well, it shows a retailer exactly how your product will perform on shelf, how the consumer discovers it, and why it earns the space. That's especially true for blind box and collectible formats, where the format itself is still unfamiliar to some retail buyers.

The Brands That Win Will Be the Ones That Invest in Storytelling

The Circana data sends a clear signal: the toy industry's recovery in 2025 was not broad-based. It was concentrated in categories that connect emotionally — licensed products, collectibles, fandom-driven properties. That momentum heading into 2026 belongs to brands that understand what their buyer is actually chasing.

And what they're chasing is a feeling. Nostalgia. Identity. The thrill of a rare variant. The satisfaction of completing a set. The ability to display something on a shelf that tells a story about who they are.

Video production for toy brands has never had a higher ceiling in terms of what good creative can do for a product launch. But it also requires a production partner who understands the category — not just one that knows how to operate a camera. If you're planning a toy launch, a licensed product campaign, or a retail sell-in strategy for 2026, we'd love to talk through what the right video approach looks like for your brand.

Curious what production actually costs for a toy commercial or product launch video? Start with our Video Production Budget Guide — it breaks down real numbers and helps you plan smarter before the first conversation.

Related Reading

→  Why Pop Mart's Rise Is Just the Beginning — and What It Means for Toy Brands

→  How We Executed a Toy Commercial Exactly as Pitched: Pokémon Monopoly Case Study

→  Why Every Toy Brand Should Be Building a YouTube Channel

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Enjoy New Media is a commercial video production company based in Atlanta. We specialize in toy commercial production, licensed IP video production, and product launch content for consumer brands and agencies across the U.S.