My Own Development of Wagamama

My Own Development of Wagamama

I started by developing the Asian dolls as to how I thought they should look. Mamawaga still being the main character, and the rest of the four characters I changed a little. Each character still had it’s own personality as before, but they also had a description of what their favourite dish that they liked to eat. This would inspire customers of what to eat next time around and they would try new dishes.

After a lot of thought I felt that the Asian dolls were really only going to appeal to women and not to men, even though I had designed two male dolls. There was something not quite right. I just couldn’t see a 20-30 something male professional putting one of these dolls on his desk. So I started to look at adult collectable vinyl toys. I went on many websites, Amos toys being one of them. There was such a broad range of characters; some had animal or human based features. After a lot of research I started to look at what characters would apply to both male and female. Is there going to be a story behind these characters? How are these characters going to appeal to both genders? And are they going to appeal to all target market groups?

With all this in mind I decided that the story and the characters that I created had to be “one to all”. They had to appeal to everybody !!!

The story theme is based on the food on the take-away menu. The characters names are inspired from the names of the dishes like “King Udon the noodle king” is from the Udon noodle dish and even “planet Waga-Yaki” is from a Yaki dish on the take-away menu. Some of the characters have been designed from the sorts of food in the take-away dishes, like the seafood-based characters or the badies. Take for instance the “Pickled Warriors” or the “Chilli-men”.

The story – “The Chilli men are plotting to invade planet Waga-Yaki and steal all their noodles. Will King Udon and Queen Soba be able to save their kingdom from noodle starvation!”.

This story and the characters have a lot of growth. There could be a lot more follow on stories as to what happens next on Planet Waga-Yaki. This could be put into an advertising campaign via the internet or a poster. There could be animated stories on the Wagamama website of their adventures to stop planet Waga Yaki from noodle starvation!

My proposal  to this brief is that customers will receive a free collectable vinyl toy with their orders over £10 pounds. I have designed these characters to attract all groups. They are meant to be “one to all”. The characters will have the Wagamama logo on them and also they will have a serial number which will indicate what number toy they are because their will be only so many made. Which will make them more collectable!!!

I envisage that business professionals will put them on their desks, which will remind them of the Wagamama brand and the “Take-out service”. Students will also put them on their desks while they are working. Families will love them for because they are such fun characters! My strapline is “Eat out and take me home”.

Vinyl toys Research

I have researched a lot into vinyl toys and found that there is a big growth in the market. The market in vinyl toys is worth over a million. Adults and teens are prepared to pay from anything from £15 onwards for their vinyl characters. Some even pay over £60 pounds for their collectables. The Vinyl toy characters market attracts the age groups from 12-50. Some of our lecturers collect these vinyl characters and have them on theirs desks! So I know that these characters will attract the older generation as well! Another good thing about vinyl toys is that they attract both girls/women and boys/men. Even though these vinyl toys are adult collectables children will love them as well.