Analysis: My Visit To Toys R Us

Today I visited Toys R Us in order to evaluate the marketing, messages, and impact that the toys have on children. It was very easy to tell when you were entering either the boys or girls section of the store. The boys section of the store used much darker colors such as red, black, and dark blue while the girls section used colors such as pink, purple, and light blue. The boys section was much louder than the girls section was. You could hear laser sounds, guns going off, and Star Wars music in the boys section; but in the girls section you heard Disney music, cries of babies, and the barks of puppies. As you entered the boys section there was a large cardboard Star Wars cut out, but as you entered the girls section there were signs saying “Dolls, dolls, dolls”. The boys section of the store was much larger than the section for the girls. There were many more aisles of toys that were targeted specifically for boys than there were that were targeted for girls. The interactions that the toys encouraged as well as the type of play they were designed for was very different between the boys and girls sections as well. The toys in the boys section encouraged competition between the children and were designed for active play. Many …show more content…
It was portrayed in the design of many of the dolls for girls and action figures for boys. The dolls and action figures are of all different types of ethnicity. It was also portrayed through the packaging of the toys. On the packaging they would usually have a child on the box somewhere. The ethnicity of the children portrayed on the box varied among different toys. I asked an employee what they would recommend me buying for a six year old boy that I didn’t know very well who was having a birthday party. The employee advised me to get anything that was either related to Star Wars or Power Rangers. They had an entire aisle specifically for Star Wars related