Press release2017-02-01

There’s a BRIO toy for every age

Every BRIO toy is designed to be fun to play with, bring joy and spark different development stages for children. This year, we have something smashing for the youngest ones and a new character based concept for toddlers: My Home Town. If that’s not enough, we also celebrate the openings of our brand new Police Station and Veterinary Clinic in BRIO World.

Three times the fun
For a toddler, what can be more fun than pounding a ball into a bucket? Pounding three balls with different colours, weights and sounds of course! Toss them into the bucket then watch and listen as they randomly roll out through the three openings. Catch them! And then we’ll do it all again!

“The Ball Pounder is a multifunctional pedagogic toy that helps the smallest children exercise “cause and effect” and coordinate hand/eye movement during play. The toy includes three differently weighted balls that roll back to the child to keep them in the centre of the play”, says Annica Nygren, Category Manager.

Character play in My Home Town Last year, we gave a sneak peak of My Home Town – a new play concept for toddlers that brings the timeless values of wooden toys and modern play value driven role play together. This year, we continue to develop the concept with lots of exciting additional products and play sets aimed for children aged from 18 months and up.

In the spring, we will be adding new vehicles; Ambulance, Fire Truck and Police Motorcycle. All of them come with both lights and sounds. For the fall season, we leave the city centre to visit the farm. The farmer’s two-storey Country House in combined materials, wood and plastic, is made to encourage character play. The set includes two characters, a cat, ladder, bed, table, white fence and a water pump and bucket. All of the My Home Town toys combine traditional design with modern features and are fully loaded with play value.

BRIO World grows with a Police Station and a Veterinary Clinic
Nowadays you do not always need to jump on the train to enter BRIO World. You can go by boat or take the whole family with you in the caravan. This spring we continue to expand BRIO World with more action and exciting roleplay in our latest addition to our Rescue theme: the Police Station.

“The Rescue theme is appreciated by children of all ages. Through iconic vehicles, uniforms and situations, the rescue theme represents an important part of the daily city life”, says Therese Eklund, Category Developer.

In 2016, BRIO launched a completely new character based play theme within BRIO World: Village. It encourages boys and girls to play together with the help of stories from their own everyday life. This fall we have good news for all the young animal lovers out there: a Veterinary Clinic.

The play set includes a modular animal clinic, an animal ambulance with light and sound, a veterinary and two dogs to take care of.

“The Veterinary Clinic is perfect for detailed character play and a great way to further enrich BRIO World. Everything is in the same scale as all the other BRIO World destinations, and fits with all railway tracks and roads”, says Therese Eklund.

Say hello to our SMART Engine!
Fun? Yes, it is! Children love to play with functions and actions, and with our new SMART Tech concept they get the opportunity to increase the play value in BRIO World and feel that they are in charge of the active play experience.

The SMART Engine is a new innovation that increases involvement in the play by using Radio Frequency Identity (RFID) technology. The battery-operated SMART Engine carries the central intelligence, receiving and sending commands from other SMART enabled BRIO items. As the train passes under SMART Tech Action Tunnels or rolls through destinations like the SMART Washing Station, it reads signals and automatically reacts with programmed actions, lights and sounds.

“With this concept, we wanted to activate and empower the child through decisions. The child is always in control, deciding whether the engine should keep going, stop, or continue in the reverse direction. All of the SMART Tech tunnels and destinations have different actions, and can be placed and rearranged any way you want along the tracks for new exciting play situations”, says Michael Heun, Head of Product Development.

BRIO can be found at Nürnberg Spielwarenmesse in hall 4, C55/D50 from February 1st–6th 2017.

About BRIO
For over a century, our driving force has been to spread joy among children around the world. We want to create happy childhood memories where the imagination is allowed to flow freely. BRIO is a Swedish toy brand that creates innovative, high-quality and well-designed wooden toys that give children a safe and fun play experience. The company was founded in 1884 and is represented in over 30 countries. For more information, please visit www.brio.net

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www.brio.net/About_BRIO/PressRoom/
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Further information
For further information and enquiries,
please contact:
Fia Rasmusson, Brand Manager BRIO AB
+46 736 44 90 63