Dynatron

January 2013

Wellyntoy Products: The Dynatron

In March 2010, Danny Keepstone, marketing manager of Wellyntoy Products, was trying to decide how many Dynatrons he should request the manufacturing plant to produce for the autumn season. The Dynatron was a novelty toy introduced on the back of a blockbuster movie in the autumn of 2009. Because of production problems and the difficulty of predicting demand, the factory had produced more Dynatrons than were eventually sold. With a new series of Dynatron adventures scheduled for Autumn showing on TV in 2010, Danny Keepstone was anxious to avoid the same situation occurring again.

The Dynatron

The idea for the Dynatron toy originated from a comic strip. Dynatron was a robot with somewhat human qualities whose adventures had proved popular with boys in the 7 to 12 years age range. Dynatron’s success had led to the development of a series of ‘cartoon-type’ films for children’s television. W ellyntoy had been quick to spot the potential of a character toy based on the Dynatron in 2008 before the movie was announced. In September 2008, they had bought the rights to design a toy and use the Dynatron name from the originator of the character. The contract involved a lump sum payment and a royalty that was based on W ellyntoy’s gross sales of the product. The royalty was not to become effective however, until a set number of Dynatrons had been sold. Early in 2009, Wellyntoy’s product designers set to work to produce an appropriate Dynatron toy for boys. The result was an injection moulded toy robot with moving parts. With a few manipulations, it could be converted into a modernistic racing car, in keeping with the original Dynatron character. The plan was to produce two types of Dynatron, the standard and the super, the main difference being the size and finish. While the design details of the Dynatron were being settled, the marketing manager, Danny Keepstone, had been attempting to determine the size of the potential...