Understanding what fun means to today’s kids

Reviews the importance of fun in the appeal of children’s products, and the investigation by Just Kid Inc. and KidzEyes into what constitutes fun. Outlines ten fun dimensions that the research revealed through factor analysis of a questionnaire about 76 activities: fun can be friend‐oriented, empowering, creative, silly, sport‐oriented, competitive, family‐oriented, surprising/adventurous, relaxing, or rebellious. Gives illustrations of each of these ten factors; children received scores on each factors, and the top‐scoring children for each factor were examined to obtain a demographic profile of children who are most likely to find a particular dimension to be fun. Suggests how marketers can use the fun dimensions to develop new products and grow brands: this would include evaluation of how far existing products hit different kinds of fun and filling in gaps with other fun dimensions.