Minecraft, kids’ favorite video game of 2019, wants users to “get crafty.” In early 2019 we saw girls increasingly enjoying gaming. By the end of the year, boys listed Arts and Crafts as a top 10 hobby. The gender gap is closing in the toy industry and it is being reflected in kids’ favorite hobbies. Does your marketing strategy reflect this?
Minecraft reigned supreme as kids’ favorite game in 2019, as it’s equally popular with boys and girls. Messaging of “getting crafty” and “building” gives the game mass appeal. Along with the Minecraft trend, we saw shifts in kid’s favorite hobbies. Gaming took a top 5 spot with girls while arts and crafts made it to top 10 with boys. The Minecraft craze is redefining who games and what crafting is proving a nonbinary marketing approach in the kids space is relevant.
Minecraft
Minecraft is a cross-platform game enjoyed most on consoles. Impressively, the game resonates with all kids – only 6.4% more boys list it as their favorite game than girls . Popularity of Minecraft takes shape with 7-year olds, then peaks with 11 and 18 year-olds. Minecraft is undoubtedly enjoyed by every kid demographic.
But what is Minecraft? The game’s website sets the scene: “Prepare for an adventure of limitless possibilities as you build, mine, battle mobs, and explore the ever-changing Minecraft landscape.If you can dream it, you can build it. Put your imagination and limitless resources to work with Creative Mode.”
Crafting
Just as gaming has evolved, crafting has too. The language of gaming apps encourages kids to build and create presents arts and crafts in a new light; they are no longer old-school or lame.
Traditional arts and crafts kits are popular, but not to be outdone by the DIY-slime craze. The slime trend began in 2016 and grew exponentially between 2017 and 2018. Slime remained trendy in 2019 and shows no signs of disappearing just yet. The creative, ooey-gooey process of making slime is a hit with boys and girls on platforms such as YouTube and in households across the globe. On our kids social content-sharing platform, PopJam, we see kids playing games about slime, posting images of their own slime, and engaging with influencer content focused around slime.
At the end of 2019, boys of all ages (including teens) listed arts and crafts as a favorite hobby! We continue to follow kids’ hobbies to see how much this will grow in 2020.
Crafting Redefined
Boys and girls not only play together, they’re also enjoying a lot of the same things. Whether it’s a girl playing Minecraft on a console or a brother/sister duo creating slime, everything goes.
Established gender demographic strategies won’t reach your under-16 audience accurately if they’re built on tools originally designed for adults. Using kidtech tools (like AwesomeAds and KidSafe Video) specifically designed to reach the content this audience is engaging with today is essential. To learn more about our kid-safe contextual targeting platform, get in touch with our sales team here.
Zaynah Rashid is Market Strategy Manager at SuperAwesome.
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The Insight People’s Kids Insights: Leisure Measure report Q4’20 ‘Leisure Measure is predominantly based on the results of surveying 5,325 children between 1st October and 30th December 2019, though it also utilises data collected since June 2018.
Specific question: What is your favourite hobby? n=739 girls, n = 733 boys aged 3 – 12, n=471 girls, n=431 boys aged 13- 18. Data collected between 1st October and 30th December 2019
