Do You Kinz?
Ad Age has their list of the Marketing 50, Fifty Sharp Ideas and the Visionaries Who Saw them Through. There are the usual suspects — the iPhone, Facebook, Coke Zero — but one that caught my eye was something that only parents of kids a certain age may be aware of, Webkinz.
My 6-year-old daughter introduced me to the wonderful world of Webkinz several months ago. I had never heard of it, and she had to show me everything about it. (I’m a single dad. She set up her original account at her mom’s.)
Most people’s initial reaction to anything that a kid plays with involving electronics is that it is bad for them and it is going to make them lazy and stifle their imagination. “Kids don’t need a magic wand from Disney that lights up and makes noise! I made a magic wand out of a stick and a rotten apple when I was a kid!” I don’t agree with that philosophy. I think it is great that my kid is computer literate — she has been for three years. I’ll review each application, game or movie she brings to me on a case by case basis as far as merit and decide then if I want her to be involved.
My first reaction to Webkinz was that the company, Ganz, had to be sitting on a goldmine. That turns out to be the case. They hit on the beanie babies of this generation. The idea is brilliant, yet elegantly simple. It is a social networking site for kids, and it’s free. But it isn’t really free. You have to go buy the stuffed animal at your local Toys ‘R’ Us or Target, your animal comes with a unique code, you register your animal and name it, then the site is free for your animal to roam and play and interact. And if you’re my kid, or any of her friends, that is the end of playing with the actual stuffed animal.
Now, if you’ve never been there, you may be picturing a MySpace for kids, fraught with all kinds of evil dangers putting our little ones at risk. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can only choose pre-written comments, like “bring it on” during a game of checkers, and no personal information is made available. There are mindless activities, like bowling and a game which I think is called jostle, but the beauty is that many of the activities have elaborate instructions, which has helped my child’s reading comprehension, because I make her read it herself. Kids have to feed and exercise their animals, take them to the doctor, and buy, sell and barter goods and services. All of this requires reading, math and deductive thinking.
Now, do I let her sit for an entire Saturday afternoon playing Webkinz on the computer? Of course not. But I will say that I think it is much better than plopping her down in front of a mind-numbing “Strawberry Shortcake” movie on a rainy Saturday afternoon. Plus, I got my own Webkinz (cha-ching for Ganz) so that I can play with her online when she is at her mom’s house.
Of course, she’s gone back and bought three or four more Webkinz to play with online. The actual stuffed animals have been relegated to the same corner of her room as the original. As a parent, I’m not real pleased about that. She’s got about 40 or 50 bucks so far into this free website. As a marketing ploy, bravo to you, Ganz.
I mentioned that I have my own Webkinz. If you are cruising around Webkinz World and you are challenged to a game of checkers by a Golden Retriever named Goldie Fuzz, watch out. I’m taking you down.
(This is the blog for Frank/Best International, a full-service marketing, multimedia and PR agency located in beautiful Nashville, Tennessee. We do not condone making a buck by manipulating children to separate their parents from their money. We do, however, fall victim to it.)
