Sophie the Giraffe - Slow but Steady Penetration of Retail Channels

When I wrote about Sophie the Giraffe (or Sophie la Girafe) in June, I knew that the toy was popular in North America, but this Slate article elaborates with even more information. If there's anything you want to know about Sophie, it's covered in the Slate article.

The giraffe's online popularity ensures it won't go extinct any time soon. Just as an article's presence on the New York Times' most-read list ensures that still more people will read it, Sophie's Amazon ranking is self-perpetuating—since everyone's drawn to the No. 1 product, items at the top of online lists tend to stay at the top. The giraffe is also easier to find than ever in the offline world. Along with the boutiques that made her famous, you can now get Sophie at megastores like Babies R Us and Pottery Barn Kids.

The article provides an interesting look at the growth of Sophie's popularity and its expansion in traditional and non-traditional toy channels.

Green Beans vs. Garbanzos

Here's a follow up to a post I wrote last fall about Walmart's private label packaging for their Great Value house brand, suggesting that Walmart ought to give a little more thought to how they approach packaging for their Great Value brand before someone makes their morning pancakes with furniture polish. This photo exemplified the issue.

It turns out that Walmart agrees, as newmarketbuilders' Carol Spieckerman writes:

Walmart’s new quest for color isn’t just about store shelf navigation—they’re now thinking about how products look in shoppers’ pantry shelves. It stands to reason that if you’re buying more Great Value than ever, telling your green beans from your garbanzos would become problematic as the sea of white stacked up on your shelves!