For Bayala to become popular the German company that produces it, Schleich GmbH, has employed various marketing strategies, though not all have been successful and none have skyrocketed it to worldwide fame. Though Schleich GmbH is a very well known company, being the most notable creator of both smurf and horse figurines in the world, they have not managed to translate that success into their magical elven toy collection. Bayala is not a very popular toy line and has never been able to reach higher levels of popularity.
Attempts have been made through the movie and video games recently released. This is an example of ‘toyesis’ as introduced by Jason Bainbridge (2017) or ‘transmedia storytelling’ as introduced by Tore Gulden (2015). They explain both concepts to be the use of multiple media forms to further the commercial value and popularity of a product or franchise, by adding more depth and dynamism to the toys. In practice this can be the creation of a toy based on a movie or comic like often done by Disney and Pixar. It could be a movie or comic based on a toy franchise like done by LEGO, Hot Wheels (Bainbridge, 2017) and Transformers (Wolski, 2022). This remediation is all done to further its importance and value to those using it. Though, in the case of Bayala, the toyesis was not very successful as the remediations did not increase popularity. The movie instead was a letdown, not receiving high ratings IMDb giving them a score of only 4.7/10 (IMDB, n.d.) and many other websites not even having a score for it. The video games had a better reception with the public reviews being mostly positive. These however also did not reach great popularity and therefore also did not increase toy sales for Schleich GmbH.
Another standout feature of the Bayala marketing has to be the gendered approach that has been taken for it. The current Bayala toy line is clearly marketed towards girls more than boys. This can be seen by multiple choices they make. Pink and pastel colours are often used in marketing for girls (Auster & Mansbach, 2012). In the current Bayala toy collection these are very prominent colours. Almost all figurines in the Bayala world are pastel pink or pastel blue, which can be also found on the webpage for Bayala. Commercials for Bayala often only feature girls playing with the toys. This type of gendered toy marketing has led to many debates in society, mainly questioning the effects of such marketing, the question of if the marketing actually changes preferences and if it is commercially viable to stop marketing in that way (Fine & Rush, 2018). Toys often reflect the opinions of adults onto children, as adults decide which to buy and let their kids play with. This leads to gender self socialisation, which is children associating certain objects, activities or colours to genders though never specifically being told that this is the case (Auster & Mansbach, 2012). This leads back to the debate between gender essentialism, the belief that a child is born with gendered preferences, and gender constructivism, the belief that gendered opinions are formed through society, including gendered toy marketing (Fine & Rush, 2018). These debates are important, as they surround young children whose lives and opinions are shaped by decisions made by toy companies, such as Schleich, about how they present their toys and which values they want to instill into children.