Why do children like Kinder for 2.5 thousand rubles so much, or What is an L.O.L. doll?

L.O.L. Surprise dolls are very popular among modern children, which are represented by a plastic ball with a small baby inside. It also comes with several accessories and clothing items. It can be completely miniature shoes, a blouse, a pacifier, a mobile phone, a water bottle and so on.

All this stuff costs about 2500 rubles. Two and a half thousand for a ball with a diameter less than 10 cm ... Let's figure out why these dolls are so popular and what is their secret.

The user "YAP" under the pseudonym AREKH shared his observations on this matter. Below are his words.

A source: I cried

If you think that modern children still play Bratz dolls or spin spinners, then you are deeply mistaken. Now the flowers of life around the world are playing L.O.L. dolls (yes, this is an attempt to make a name consonant with lol or "lol"), whose name stands for Lil Outrageous Littles ("a little shocking crumbs"). And since you still don't know what it is, then get ready to find out the terrible truth.

At first glance, the toy looks harmless enough. It is a small ball with a doll hidden inside. But to get to it, you need to overcome six more layers of packaging.

The first layer is a riddle-a rebus.

The second is a set of stickers with the properties of the doll.

The third is an accessory for the doll, for example, a bottle to give her water.

The fourth is shoes for the doll, and the fifth is clothes.

The sixth is again an accessory, but already fashionable, such as a nipple, a headband or a cell phone, and, finally, the seventh is the doll itself.

Everything is made of plastic, including the balloon itself, which after unpacking can be used both as a handbag for a doll, and as a seat for her, and also as a bath to bathe her.

As you probably already guessed, dolls in L.O.L. balloons are collectible and the point is to collect them all. So that children (and most importantly, their parents) do not forget about this, a checklist is attached to each purchase, where you can mark which dolls you have already collected.

All dolls are divided into four classes: popular, fantastic, rare and ultra-rare (baby dolls with pacifiers). In addition, toys have their own interests: sports, dancing, theater, fashion, vocals, glamour, fun, spirits, opposites and queens. Some of the dolls change their hair color when immersed in water, others spit, others cry, and others pee. As a result, there are 45 toys in total that need to be collected.

And this is only the first series, released in early 2017 in the United States. After her, in the summer of 2017, the second series was released, in which there were already 82 dolls (35 original, similar to the dolls from the first, and 47 of their little sisters). And in the fall of 2017, the third series of animals for dolls went on sale, in which there are only 35 toys so far.

And now — to the financial side of the issue. Now it is almost impossible to find toys of the first series on sale, but the balls of the second series are sold in toy stores at a price of, for example, 1,999 rubles apiece. By simple arithmetic, you can calculate how much you will have to spend to purchase all 82 dolls. And this is not taking into account the cost of the first and third series.

The idea to put the doll in a ball with layers did not come to the manufacturers by chance: they realized that videos on YouTube with unpacking various toys are very popular. The company did not lose with the strategy. Despite the fact that MGA Entertainment did not advertise its novelty in any way, the toy immediately became a hit first in the USA, and then in other countries.

L.O.L. dolls became the best-selling toy for girls in October 2017. Such sets have been growing at double-digit rates worldwide for the second year. Children collect whole collections, play, arrange them as on showcases and take pictures, posting the result on social networks.

Among our friends (we all have children), to the question: what to give a child 5 years old for DR, three said it was a doll lol. But it doesn't fit in my head that a plastic toy the size of a Kinder Surprise toy stands as a full-fledged designer. For 2000 rubles, you can buy cool paints, plasticine, books, cars, but despite this, parents choose THIS.

The cost of such a doll most likely ranges from 30 to 50 rubles. I have already expressed the idea that you can buy a 3d printer and print a lot of dolls, compared to the cost of the full collection, there will still be. But then I was told that you can buy cheaper, but the quality will not be the same…

Separate VKontakte groups are dedicated to L.O.L. dolls. There, parents discuss where to buy exactly original toys, not fakes (yes, there are plenty of them on the market), how to distinguish a fake from the original, sell dolls, buy them, change them, order them collectively.

Various forums are full of instructions on what signs to recognize a Chinese fake in the balls. However, they all end hopelessly: manufacturers of fake toys have recently become so skilled in their craft that it is becoming more and more difficult to distinguish a real doll from a fake. But it's still worth learning about some of the main differences, and they are mainly reduced to the following points.

You need to pay attention to the name L.O.L. In the original toys, it is written only this way and in no other way (not L.QL. or LOLOLOL).

The barcode should be located on the image of the bottle (or on the bone for toys of the third series).

A sticker about the supplier must be present on the balloon.

The real balloons have the markings of the company that produces them.

This is how the images of the seven secrets of each doll should be drawn.

Fakes are distinguished by distortions of the packaging color (it is most often more acidic), and there is only one inscription around the serial number of fakes (there should be three in total).

As soon as you unpack the balloon, you will most likely immediately notice the difference between a real toy and a fake one. But the problem is that it will not be so easy to return the doll.

Lolcomania is not the first case of a race for some specific toys. For example, in Russia some time ago there was a real craze for clingers, which were issued by the Dixie store. The story was very similar to what is happening now with L.O.L. dolls, however, it was still far from a global scale.