Rules for Selling Promotional Games and Toys

By Michael Cornnell

Toy Safety Law 101

Rick Brenner, MAS, CEO of Prime Line, Bridgeport, Conn., and product safety expert, explained some of the basics of product safety law as it relates to children's toys and products. His explanation is reproduced below.

"According to the text of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), the term "children's toy" means a consumer product designed or intended by the manufacturer for a child 12 years of age or younger for use by the child when the child plays. If a toy falls into that definition, CPSIA has five requirements:

1. Lead-in-substrate of no more than 100 ppm

2. Lead-in-paint or surface coating of no more than 90 ppm (surface coating includes any painted surfaces, as well as imprinting, that can be scratched off, such as pad printing, silk screening, image bonds, etc. If the imprinting becomes part of the substrate, such as printing on paper-as in a book-then the 100 ppm lead-in-substrate standard applies.)

3. A permanent limit on three phthalates (DEHP, DBP or BBP)  of no more than 0.1 percent

4. A temporary ban on three additional phthalates (DINP, DIDP and DnOP)  of no more than 0.1 percent

5. It must comply with ASTM F963-08 Toy Safety Standard (Editor's note: Short for  "The American Society for Testing and Manufacturing Standard," the full rule set can be found at www.astm.org/toys.html.)

If a children's product is not a toy, then 1, 2 and 3 apply. Phthalates and ASTM F963 only apply to toys and they are the two most expensive tests.

CPSIA defines children's products as a consumer product designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger. So the difference between the two definitions is the word "primarily" and "when the child plays." Children's products have to be primarily intended for 12 and under. Toys are just intended for 12 and under, and toys are for use when the child plays.

A Disney Winnie the Pooh lunchbox is intended primarily for 12 and under, but not when the child plays. So it's a children's product and subject to 1, 2 and 3. But an Elmo stuffed animal would be a children's toy because it is intended for the child when the child plays. It is subject to 1 through 5.

You can think of children's toys as a limited subset of children's products. The absence of the word "primarily" in the children's toy definition is the reason that our industry has always had an open question as to whether adult toys might ever be considered as toys intended for children 12 years of age or younger. For the most part, CPSIA has never formally opined on this. But informally, senior CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) staff has generally felt that promotional products are not children's toys.

Obviously, if someone purchased an executive toy from Prime Line, had us decorate it with a very juvenile imprint and then distributed it to children under 12 as a toy, well that would certainly be regarded as a children's toy. The real question has to do with toys given out to adults where the product ends up in the home and ultimately into the toy box. That's the scenario that has CPSC concerned.

Prime has always taken a conservative approach and insisted on toy testing for products such as Rubik's cubes, Slinkys, etc."

Fun is subjective. Making money off of fun? Somewhat less so. It's no exact science, but if you want to be successful selling toys and otherwise using the idea of play in your promotions, there are a handful of objective rules and guidelines to follow in order to answer some important sales questions.

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