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Toys Bring Out Kid in Corporate America
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lugnet.mediawatch
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Date:
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Sat, 1 Jun 2002 04:39:15 GMT
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20020529/bs_usatoday/4
147921
Toys bring out kid in Corporate America
Wed May 29, 8:38 AM ET
Bruce Horovitz USA TODAY
Push those paperweights and penholders off the desk. Make way for corporate-
colored Silly Putty eggs and Etch A Sketch boards etched with company logos.
The toy industry, desperate to boost income after several years of flat sales,
is trying to lure Corporate America into the toy shop.
Using nostalgia as a sales hook, the toymakers behind such familiar brands as
Lego and Slinky (yes, even $100 gold-plated Slinkys) are looking for ways to
broaden their bases beyond children. At issue: a $23 billion, kid-coddling
industry with nowhere to go for growth but, ugh, grown-ups.
''They'll try just about anything,'' says Jim Silver, publisher of The Toy
Book, an industry trade magazine. ''It's ugly out there.''
There's a very serious notion to all this, too. Most executives are basically
kids in adult clothing. One newly created division of Lego is sponsoring
two-day corporate strategy seminars, where executives use specially made Lego
blocks to help companies construct, if you will, new strategies. And maybe blow
off a little creative steam in the process.
The rationale: Adults need toys, too.
''It's grown-ups -- more than kids -- who need toys on their desks to play with
when they're stressed,'' says Howard Papush, a corporate consultant who goes by
the name ''Dr. Play.'' And it's no big surprise that the toys executives favor
are the toys of their youth.
Promotion-industry executives are dumbfounded. Companies used to want their
names etched onto pens, hats and coffee mugs. No more. Now, they want toys.
While sales of these items now account for less than 1% of all toy sales,
analysts estimate they could ultimately grow to 10%.
''Executive toys are the only part of this industry that's growing,'' says Jeff
Huvar, vice president of Promobrands.com, which imprints corporate logos onto
Frisbees, Hula Hoops and Magic 8-Balls.
Many of the names are as familiar as the shocked face on your first-grade
teacher when you snuck one of these into the classroom:
* Silly Putty. With its sales flat, the maker of Silly Putty figures the best
way to get the egg off its face may be to get its Silly Putty eggs inside the
corporate suite.
That's why Silly Putty has begun to nudge business executives to stamp their
corporate logos -- and company colors -- onto the familiar eggs. Companies can
order a minimum of 5,000. Cost: From 80 cents to $1.50 each, depending on the
number ordered.
Its first corporate customer: Puffs.
''What better way to inspire creativity and imagination?'' asks Susan Mboya,
brand manager for the tissues. She ordered thousands of the Silly Putty eggs,
which will feature the Puffs logo along with its familiar powder blue corporate
coloring. Many will be handed out to employees next month at a company party.
Silly Putty's corporate sales program won't officially launch until fall. But
after displaying the items at a trade show last month, the orders already are
coming in.
Work stress isn't the only driver. So is the psychic fallout from Sept. 11. ''A
lot of people are looking for simple things that they feel comfortable with,''
says Debra Ottinger, manager of partnerships at Binney & Smith, the parent
company.
The company also makes Crayola crayons. It's pondering a similar corporate
tie-in with them. Companies will be able to order the big box stuffed with 64
crayons that match the company's corporate colors -- such as all blue crayons
for IBM or dark brown for UPS.
* Etch A Sketch. For Ohio Art, maker of Etch A Sketch, these are not the best
of times. For one thing, Kmart, which has sold more Etch A Sketches than any
other retailer since the toy was created 42 years ago, is still in bankruptcy
proceedings.
Wal-Mart carries the toy, too, but because the retailer is so notoriously
tight-fisted, it's tougher than ever for Ohio Art to make a profit on it, says
Bill Killgallon, CEO of the company. That, combined with the overall softness
in the toy industry, has created ''one heck of an impetus'' for Etch A Sketch
to seek corporate clients, Killgallon says.
It even hired promo specialist Airmate to seek out such gigs.
Among those it's landed: Visa and Pepsi-Cola. Visa ordered 10,000 pocket-size
Etch A Sketches -- complete with the Visa logo and made in Visa's familiar blue
color -- to hand out to clients. And Pepsi ordered more than 15,000 -- made in
Pepsi red with the Pepsi logo -- as part of a consumer giveaway last year.
Last year, Ohio Art also created a heart-shaped Etch A Sketch for Avon that
representatives sold door-to-door.
There's another potential market: When Killgallon's daughter, Carrie, is
married next month, guests will find their correct seats at the wedding party
tables by looking for their names printed on heart-shaped Etch A Sketches at
each setting.
* Slinky. Never mind that since 1945, about 300 million Slinkys have been sold
-- if not sprung.
Ray Dallavecchia, president of Slinky maker Poof Products, wants to sell you
one now. So the company has created an entire division in search of companies
that want to slap their logos onto Slinkys -- plastic or metal. Citigroup has.
So has Phillips 66. And Holiday Inn.
''The aura and icon status of Slinky is such that the adult appeal is
extensive,'' Dallavecchia says.
He won't say how much money the division makes, but he does say, ''It's
absolutely a profit center.'' Sales of Slinkys with corporate logos are growing
at a rate of about 5% annually -- making it one of Poof's fastest-growing
products -- and now make up about 10% of total sales.
The most profitable Slinky is clearly for executives. It's a version plated in
18-karat gold that sells for a cool $100. ''How many guys can say they have an
18-karat gold Slinky on their desk?'' he says.
* Lionel. The folks at Lionel are always searching for ways to get new people
all aboard -- particularly those who aren't already train buffs.
It's not easy, CEO Bill Bracy says. But by recently luring corporate customers,
the familiar train cars are showing up in unexpected places. Whirlpool ordered
Whirlpool-themed train sets as an incentive for retailers and employees. Each
of the boxcars was personalized for the company.
''This is only about 1% of our business,'' Bracy says. ''But it's a form of
advertising and promotion that gets our trains into some unlikely venues.'' And
onto some executive desktops.
* Lego. Perhaps no toymaker has taken corporate clients quite as seriously as
Lego.
The maker of snap-together, plastic building parts isn't satisfied to simply
sell the product to grown-ups. Through a new niche brand called Lego Serious
Play, it's also peddling two-day, executive seminars that use special sets of
Lego bricks as executive learning tools. The workshop focuses on ''strategy
making,'' says Robert Rasmussen, CEO of Executive Discovery, the sister company
to Lego that makes the Serious Play products.
Cost of the workshop: $10,000.
For that price, you even get to keep the 50 pounds of specially packaged Lego
bricks (about 6,500) that teams of 10 executives are directed to assemble
together.
Among the companies that have bought it: Nokia, Tupperware and DaimlerChrysler.
The first question that Rasmussen typically asks executives: ''Does your
company operate more like a race car or a zoo?'' Then, he asks the team to
construct their answer out of Lego blocks. Yes, this special Lego set comes
complete with monkeys and elephants.
''This is about using play to enhance business,'' Rasmussen says. ''We give
them the tools that can help them think.''
But first they must play around.
Papush, the consultant whose Los Angeles company is called Let's Play Again,
isn't embarrassed to admit he keeps a box of wooden blocks on his desk that he
pulls out at least once a week when he's feeling tense. He likes them, he says,
because they're like the blocks he played with as a kid.
He charges up to $3,000 for half-day seminars with senior executives. He prods
CEOs and the like to return to the creativity of their youth in order to make
the office a fun place. How? Among other things, by picking up a favorite old
toy from the toy shop.
''There's an acute kid in each of us that's dying to come out,'' says Papush,
who is working on a management book appropriately titled, When's Recess?
''If people don't bring a sense of play to work,'' Papush says, ''they're
cheating the company.''
They just have to take care that the Silly Putty doesn't gum up their keyboard.
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