What makes a toy go viral

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Squishy dumplings are these rubbery, stretchy, squishy, dumpling toys, just the right size to squeeze in your hand. It's like kind of like rubber would just like gel in it. Each one has a little pucker top like a real dumpling, plus a smiley face, and comes in its own plastic steamer basket. These little guys are some of the latest toys to go viral. And ju-ju is one of the experts we call to help us understand exactly how a little squishy blob has sold so many millions over the past few months. She told us for her the alert started a few months ago when she was swiping her way through TikToks, and she saw someone pulling a squishy dumpling out of its package for the first time. Three something like this. Oh, I really want one of those. That's just my nails. The exciting part wasn't just a toy. It was that the TikTokers didn't know what color it would be or what special qualities it would have. The part of like unbugs it and not knowing what you get is like pretty fun. She had to have one, but ju-ju is 13 years old. So actually, she had to convince her parents that she had to have one. I'm Lila. I'm Juliana's mom. Squishy supplier. [laughs] Ju-ju got her squishy supplier to take her to the store. And then we like turned down an aisle and then just like there was just like the bin stacked full of them. They bought a few and then ju-ju came home, set up her camera on a table and placed dumpling number one in front of her. Still in its little beige steamer basket with a lattice top, just like the bamboo ones, but plastic. She looked into the camera and started recording her own TikTok. Okay, so I think I don't want like pink or the purple on for like the galaxy. She pulls off the packaging and that was just her eyes and lips the lid off of the steamer basket. Oh my god! So the very first one you ever bought happened to be like the super rare blue glitter. Yeah. What are the odds? It's like, I don't know, but it's like pretty rare. Pretty soon, her friends all see her video. Okay, so now this time, so what the pink. Then they see the stumbling in real life. Or the like green. And they want to get one. And then they make their own videos. And then, 'cause millions of other people are making their own videos. That's hopefully we get the orange blue. And the squishy dumpling. And videos of people opening the squishy dumplings goes viral. And people are lining up to buy them. Stores are rationing how many can be sold. There's a booming resale market. And Juju's collection is still growing. What is that? I think I just got another glitter one. Wait. While you're talking to me? Yeah, it's just an open one. So. Whoa. Hello, and welcome to Planet Money, America Baris. The squishy dumpling is clearly speaking to something in the American psyche. But its viral success is not just the market meeting our weird desire to squeeze something cute. It is also the result of a very specific set of savvy business strategies. Today on the show, a quest to squeeze out the business lessons from this viral sensation. Where does a trend like this come from? And why? How do you build a supply chain that's ready for viral success? And? Are you the person behind the squishy dumpling? I am. Yes. First, we wanted to know exactly how big a deal are these squishy dumplings. Are squishies big right now? Yes. They are. We called up Kristen MacLean, who calls herself a consumer zoologist. She's actually a toy industry analyst, and she says 2026 has been a great year for toys. And squishy toys are one of the fastest growing categories. Squishies and fidgets. Anything you have to do with sensory, soothing, squishing, slime. Things that you play with with your hands. Squishy, slimy, fidget toys. Walk into a store, and you'll see scented, squishy fruits and vegetables. Jello cubes that smell like different flavors of jello. Then there's the needle squishes. Those are incredibly popular and near impossible to get right now. There's also a squishy stick of butter and little squishy animals. Just think stress balls, but cuter. Kristen says just since January this year, squishy toy sales have grown 279%. Why? Squishy, sensory, slimy things so big right now. I think that it has to do with the fact that people, not just kids, adults too, are looking for things that make them feel hopeful, playful, joyful. Also, things that calm them down, things that address their anxiety. Right now, it doesn't show any signs of slowing down, so I'm very bullish on this, certainly going into the holidays season this year. To me, these plastic sacks of goo all look the same. But not to the squishy dumpling officials, like Juju. We're not using her last name because she's a kid. The real ones on the bottom will say like RMS, you can't really see, but it's like there. Oh, I totally see it. Yeah, the squishy dumplings people seem most excited about are made by RMS. It stands for really magical stuff. And right now, it's one of these up-and-coming toy companies that is kind of shaking up the way big toy makers like Mattel or Hasbro do business. But that wasn't the case back when Zack Barber first started working there in the UK, where he's from. As you can tell from my accent. You are the person who made this happen, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely something that we can hang a hat on that we made this happen, which is really cool. How did Zack make that happen? What are the secrets to viral success? Zack told me part of it was luck. Another part of it was a game-changing shift in the way he gets toys to market that we'll come back to. But in the beginning, it was just a series of smart business lessons he picked up along the way. The first, to make a hit toy, you don't have to be some kind of wild inventor or creative genius. You just have to be someone who can figure out how to tweak an existing toy in a way that makes it trendy. Zack has seen this trick work many times over his 20 years at his toy company. He actually started out driving the forklift back in the UK, then he designed packaging for RMS toys. I would design a sticker book, or it would be a pencil case with a new cool design on it, maybe this mermaid, maybe this dinosaurs. But then he moved into toy development, and the first toy he developed was a simple tweak that seized on a trend. It was 2008, and there was this super popular show in the UK called Supernanny. She'd give out rewards when kids were good. Well that show was trending, so we put that trend on through that product. Zack created a reward sticker book. And everybody wanted it, just something so simple. Was it like, did you have to get the IP or anything from the show, or you just were? No, we didn't call it Supernanny, we just called it a reward chart. A tweak for their small company that mostly sells small inexpensive toys, it was a hit. Zack says they sold like 10,000 of these sticker books. And the next time Zack remembers that tweak model really working for them was a decade later. In 2018, after RMS had expanded to the US, they came out with their own tweak on a pop-it. You know the pop-it, that silicone tray thing with bumps that when you're fidgety, you can push them in, and they make a little pop sound like this. And then you can push them back from the other side, very viral a few years ago. Now RMS didn't invent the pop-it, theirs is called a pop-er, and this is a key part of how their company works, because there is this place, this buzzing manufacturing city in China called Iwo, and in that city is this like endless bizarre for toy companies. There are thousands of sellers with what are called open market toys. So imagine walking down that road, you've got tables left and right, and you've got all the street vendors trying to sell you these light toys that they're throwing in the air or bouncy balls that they try to get your attention with. - Oh my goodness, like a living commercial of people on the sides just like playing you with toys. - Yeah, so through that market, a lot of these like knickknacks will call it for the purposes conversation. That's where you're gonna find them. - That was where he found a popper. This one was a simple silicone square and he was like, hear me out. What if we do something trendy with it? Make it in the shape of a butterfly and glittery. And this time, he says, they sold millions. - I call it innovation with a small eye. - Uh-huh. - It doesn't need to be the next big thing. It just needs to do something to turn the dial a little bit. - I asked Zach, is that how the squishy dumpling came about? - Yeah, it is. It's exactly what happened. - One of his colleagues caught sight of it in those long aisles in Europe. - Basically, this item, similar to the popper, like if you just sold it as is, it's gonna sell and it's kinda cool and it's okay. This first version, the as is squishy dumpling, made its debut in 2020. And it didn't flop, but it languished, lounged on the shelves, sold like 100,000. Then a few years into squishy dumplings life in 2023, Zach picked up on a huge trend. He was looking around the toy landscape. And he was like, duh, people are really in a surprise is. Or as he calls it, mystery. - We started to adjust up business, how long ago or how do we make it cool? How do we make it trendy? - By this time, Zach was CEO of RMS in the US. And this is the second big lesson. He says he learned about how to create a viral toy. How do you make it trendy? You add surprise. - This one, we just thought it comes in this really cool basket. Why tell them what color? And that's when we turned it to a mystery. - Yeah, they put a little suspense into it. And for many people, like 13 year old Juju, the suspense is key. Like if I just gave you a pile of them unboxed with that matter. - I mean, I'd so be happy 'cause it's a bunch of toys, but I feel like the opening part and not knowing what you get is part of the fun. - Why do you think that is? - 'Cause I don't know, I feel like if they just displayed which ones it were, it wouldn't be as fun because then you just get to pick which ones you want and then it'd be kind of boring, just like getting the same thing. Like when you open it and you don't know what it is, there's like a chance that you might get something else. - Even Juju's mom Lila gets it. When she was a kid, the thing she absolutely had to have were these trading cards. - I collected those garbage pale kids. - Oh yeah, cards. - You know the cards? - Yeah, I wasn't into sports so I didn't collect baseball cards, but I feel like it's that same kind of thing where you don't know what you're gonna get and you keep getting the same ordinary ones, but you're looking for that one rare card. - Garbage pale kids were a phenomenon back in the 1980s, a spoof on another viral toy, the Cabbage Patch Kid, but like the grossest and yes, politically incorrectist version of them. There were cards like Snooty Sam, which was a nose picking Uncle Sam and Broad Mod, a very large doll surrounded by candy bar wrappers, and those are just the ones I feel quasi comfortable sharing on the air. The psychology behind really all trading cards is you keep buying them at a really inexpensive price with the hope that you'll get the one you really want. And these toys share a lot with casino slot machines. They're all playing with the brain's reward system, like you're chasing a specific outcome. You're so close, so close. In psychology, it's called variable ratio reinforcement, where you don't know when the reward is coming and that uncertainty keeps you going. For Zach's squishy dumpling, the mystery propel things forward. And one year, they more than doubled their sales. And then Zach was like, you know what else people like? This may sound counterintuitive, but they like it when things are hard to get. People are driven by scarcity. That is the third lesson, Zach says his squishy dumpling journey made clear. He and his colleagues were like, what if we release different series of these dumplings? You'd still buy just one at a time, but the dumplings in each new series would run out eventually. And I know they came out with like a shark series where they're like all blue and then the like rare one is kind of like clear with a little shark inside the gel. Oh fine. And I know they came out with a green apple-cented one. And then what if we include one super special mystery dumpling in each series? Yeah, so there's like a galaxy one where the like rare looks like this and everything. So you don't just get six of these things and move on with your life. You have to keep buying dumplings until you get all six in the series. And if you want the super special ones, well, just keep going, keep buying. And then there's like a holographic series. They're like sneaker drops. So if you're into squishy dumplings and there's a limited drop at say the budget store five below, you don't want to have FOMO, you don't want to miss out. Juja's mom says it definitely worked on her daughter. I'd get home from work and you would be here and say, can you take me to five below? And I like I haven't even taken my jacket off yet, you know? Are your parents always willing to drive you to get them? Like not always, like I'll like convince them because if they're like, no, I don't really want to drive them. I'll just feel like well, they have them just for right now. Like what if they're never here ever again? While she's talking, she actually looks at her mom with this hopeful smile. It's like, it's kind of easy. It's reasonable for the first couple. But after a few different trips, I was like, you know, this is like $5 every time. And then it starts turning into a financial discussion. Like, you know, the craze is only because they've hooked you on this cheap piece of plastic. And yet, I kind of found myself getting excited too. I fell into it because she would be, you know, looking for these special rare ones. So there was one day I was driving home from work and I passed a five below. So I was like, oh, I'll just stop in and check off. You're the mom if they have any, if they have any dumplings and stock, that's probably my most embarrassing moment. The one day that I stopped at three or four on my way home from work, I should be embarrassed to say that. [LAUGHTER] Zach agrees, not embarrassing, because it's all by design. The thrill of the chase is exciting for people. It's a dopamine hit. Like, people get bored. Like, you got to do different things. So, you know, we're playing into the attention span. And keeping the store shelves stocked with the exact right number of toys isn't just math. There's a lot of psychology involved. If you don't have stock shelves, people get bored because they can't find it. So they get bored if they can't find it. They get bored if they can't find it. What's that happy medium ground? The happy medium ground is special release drops constantly. Now, what's that rainbow shirt that's gone? It's gone. That's it, sorry. This kind of artificial scarcity is not a move Zach invented. Now, model exists because of beanie babies. They are the pioneers, 100%. Yes, beanie babies, those small stuffed animals. I was selling toys when beanie babies came around. Kristen McLean, the consumer zoologist, was working at a toy store in Boston in the '90s when people became obsessed with them. We would get these boxes into the store and they would have a seal on them that said, "Do not open until this date." And that was the drop date for those beanie babies in the store. And people lined up for them. And Kristen says this was the very beginning of people obsessively collecting limited drops. Limited editions, special releases, you know, time boxed. Zach was reaping the benefits of all these lessons with his squishy dumplings and then came a moment, kind of the moment where the squishy dumpling took on a life of its own. He and his colleagues were in the office and they went online. And we were like, "Oh my god, there's like 500 million views of these people going crazy over their dumplings." They loved the unboxing experience of finding the glitter one. And it went nuts. It was regular people that were promoting our product without being asked to because they loved it. - So, well, last year's access, they've sold millions of squishy dumplings. He says, "So far in the first half of this year, they've sold 10 times that, in the tens of millions." It's one thing to go viral. It's another to keep pace with it. Like, how do you make tens of millions more squishy dumplings exactly and only when customers want them? That's after the break. (upbeat music) The thing Zach says, he never really thought about before that day, he saw so many tiktokers unboxing his dumplings, was how much what people did with them mattered. - It's the experience. It's not necessarily the dumpling itself. It's the reaction to the dumpling that everybody is hooked on. - I'm so excited to open these. - Everybody wants a piece of that. - Let's attempt to create a lesbian pride flag inspired custom dumpling. - Yes, you are probably the first in your bloodline to ever hear that sentence, but I have childlike wonder and ground folks money. So I bought ten of them. The idea that there is this massive marketing apparatus that they didn't even have to pay for, Zack says that was a huge stroke of luck. What was not luck was how well prepared to go viral his business was. To keep up with social media, Zack would have to orchestrate a super nimble supply chain, which RMS had already cultivated. Zack had for years struggled to get his toys into the major retail stores in the US. So instead, he focused on stores that sell inexpensive impulse toys, like five below. And he built a lot of his business around trends, which meant short orders and fast production. So his supply chain already looked different from a lot of other companies. RMS was perpetually ready to ramp up or ramp down production. We work out our production schedules by week. So let's just say factory A can produce a hundred thousand in a week. That means that we will officially give that factory a nod the week before we're supposed to go into production. They'll have it already to go, but we don't have to produce millions at a time. We're producing based on the orders that need to go out, you know, relatively close to the ship dates. So on Monday and you call and you're like press the button. It's squishy dumpling time. Does every toy company operate like that? I think that what most toy companies would think is the smart thing to do is to get ahead of it and to produce an advance and have the samples ready and to have the stock ready. They present prototypes of new toys to retailers more than a year before they're in stores. The retailers put in their orders and then lots of toys get manufactured and they're kept in storage. But I just don't think like that. I think that like, when do I need to produce what's the very last moment to limit my liability for everybody? There's a lot of risk with that there is, but it worked for us. In the US, RMS does not warehouse anything. They have zero domestic stock. So it's delivered straight from the factory where it's made direct to the retailers. And if there's a downtrend, Zach is not sitting on a whole season's worth of toys, just one week's worth. It's like the fast fashion version of toys. Essentially, he's trying to never be left holding the bag. Retailers want you to have stock because they want you to have the liability, not the retailer. So for example, Walmart will say, "Well, a lot of a million, but we're only taking 100,000. You need to warehouse 900,000." And I'm just like, "No, I'd rather not have the order." In the end, because the squishy dumpling is such a big success, Zach says the major retailers are calling him up and asking to sell his toys anyway. They're adapting to his model. And Kristen says big companies are also trying to become more nimble, like hiring people whose job it is just to pay attention to what's going viral. There's a whole new department that you need to have that's like, what is breaking on TikTok today? It was easier or harder to be a toy manufacturer before. I think it's a little bit more difficult now to figure out how to get to your customer. Some extreme toy brands that have been around for a really long time are suddenly finding that the tried and true rules of their business have shifted radically. And they are worried about little companies coming up and taking their shelf space. They're worried about, where is my customer? Which platform are they using? Who are they listening to? There are no rules that seem to stay the same for even a year right now. RMS doesn't actually have someone officially working as a social media watcher with an eye on squishy dumpling traffic, but we at Planet Money do. It's been kind of dying down, but there's like some people who still post about it, but like not that much, so I'm guessing like sooner or later it's going to be like, they're going to die down and then there'll be something else and then they'll be like really easy to find. Are you still like going to get them regularly? Not as often her latest obsession, also thanks to TikTok, she's gotten super into making sourdough bread, you know, the squish of it all, which is great for her family, but maybe not so much for the toy industry. Listeners, a lot of you have been reaching out to tell us you missed out on something we offered, like NPR shop discounts or live events announcements or an episode that you have been waiting for. Well, you know how to keep up with all of our announcements? Hit the follow button, it doesn't cost you anything, and it helps the show and even juices the algorithms to show us off to future listeners. We think we're not actually totally sure how the algorithms work. This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peasley, it was edited by Marianne McKeun, it was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, it was engineered by Sina Lofredo, Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. Thank you to Jess Zhang for flagging these squishy dumpling mania and Will and Wong for being our on-the-ground dumpling reporter. I'm Erica Barris, this is NPR, thanks for listening.