Welcome to the Neighbourhood, Target

Target's imminent move to Canada has been getting a lot of publicity after years of speculation that they would be moving north. Today, they announced their first 105 locations. Located in all ten provinces, two of the stores are close to my house and I look forward to shopping there. As a marketer, I'm even more excited about Target's arrival in Canada. Having developed merchandising programs for Target's US stores with several toy and stationery companies, I'm looking forward to working with my Canadian clients to help them understand how Target works and help them grow their sales.

In today's Financial Post, Target Canada President Tony Fisher talked a little about what we can expect.

Somebody Lives in My Office

I recently stumbled upon a website called Toronto Standard that did a nice feature on the toy industry in Toronto. I'm fortunate to have worked with all the Toronto companies mentioned in the article, including Irwin Toy, whose old building is now called The Toy Factory Lofts. I wonder who lives in my third floor office.

If you'd like to know more about Toronto's thriving toy industry, read the pleasant and informative article here.

Cow Maintenance Charges

The New York Times' Frugal Traveler recently wrote about the fees and surcharges that are typical of airlines, hotels, and car rental companies. I've always felt that some industries get away with deceptive tactics while other industries, like the toy industry where I have worked for many years, behave far more ethically despite the criticism we receive.

The Frugal Traveler sums it up best by pointing out that

The confusion begins on the rental car Web sites, where most companies start out giving you a base rate that is rendered utterly useless by a random assortment of “concession fees” and “facilities charges” and “bus cost recovery fees” (not to mention taxes). It’s as if the price tag on a carton of milk covered the liquid alone, with refrigeration cost, cow maintenance charges and expiration-date ink-recuperation fees added at check-out. (emphasis mine)

Read the full article here.

How to Eat Breakfast Cereal

I think it's great to come up with distinct positioning for any product, but sometimes it can be a little out there. Does your breakfast cereal "meal replacement" come with directions for use?

The product is delicious, by the way.

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!

Toy Tuesday: Thunderbirds are Go!

This intro to the 1960s TV series Thunderbirds brings back fond memories from my childhood as well as my career in the toy industry.

I stumbled upon this article from io9.com, and it looks like Thunderbirds are coming back.

A fansite for Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson (titled Fanderson) is reporting that on the BBC Radio 5Live show creator Anderson confirmed that he has finalized a deal to make new Thunderbirds series.

All Anderson could say about the project is this, "I don't want to sound conceited, but because I'm going to make it... I'm confident that it will be a smash hit!" Which is understandable, since he has signed a confidentiality agreement with the BBC. BUT - the big question still hasn't been answered. Will there be puppets? And will the world embrace puppet theater once again? The people making the Muppet movie are certainly banking on the world's nostalgia for puppets, but Thunderbirds had a very different look. Our guess is the whole thing will be CG, which would be sad, hopefully it won't go that route.

Thunderbirds follows an International Rescue team who traveled the world in their various boats, submaries, spaceships, and planes righting the wrongs and saving the day. They were like team James Bond for kids.

In the mid 1990s at Tyco Toys, we had great success with Thunderbirds toys under the Matchbox brand in the UK and Canada, though we didn't get much traction in the US. Ten years later, Thunderbirds toys were back in Canada when I was working as Marketing Director at Irwin Toy. With (desperately needed) new entertainment coming, let's hope those working on the new Thunderbirds capitalize on all the cool technology that will bring the brand amazing special effects and lots of media formats.

Could whatever new bells and whistles are brought by today's technology be cooler than the original "Supermarionation"?

To a new generation of kids, "Thunderbirds are Go!"