Cars and Dora goods top back-to-school wishlists

For the first time this year, US-based org The National Retail Federation's 2011 Back-to-School survey (conducted by BIGresearch) asked parents of K-12 students if they have purchased or were planning to purchase character-themed merchandise for the back-to-school season.

August 25, 2011

For the first time this year, US-based org National Retail Federation’s 2011 Back-to-School survey (conducted by BIGresearch) asked parents of K-12 students if they have purchased or were planning to purchase character-themed merchandise for the back-to-school season.

Nearly half of parents (43.4%) said they would purchase at least one character item, with Disney’s Cars and Star Wars from Lucasfilm taking top slots for boys, and Dora the Explorer (Nickelodeon) and Hello Kitty (Sanrio) topping the list for girls.

Other popular properties for boys included Spider-Man (Marvel), SpongeBob SquarePants (Nickelodeon) and Transformers (Hasbro), while girls were partial to Disney Princess, Tinker Bell and Justin Bieber. The only property to appear in the top 10 of each list was SpongeBob SquarePants.

NRF‘s 2011 Back-to-School and Back-to-College Consumer Intentions and Actions Surveys were conducted through a poll of 8,632 consumers between August 2 and 9, 2011. The consumer polls have a margin of error of plus or minus 1.0%.

TAGS:

Disney, Hasbro, Lucasfilm, National Retail Federation, Nickelodeon Consumer Products, Sanrio

About The Author

Gary Rusak is a freelance writer based in Toronto. He has covered the kids entertainment industry for the last decade with a special interest in licensing, retail and consumer products. You can reach him at garyrusak@gmail.com

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