This week we’re going out and about into the web, into the land of the Webkinz.
Webkinz, for those of you have haven’t met them, are stuffed critters with an online life. The story might be subtitled: Beanie Babies meet The Sims. Or, how a 56-year-old gift and toy company reinvents itself in the age of online play.
Drop into any local toy store and you’ll probably see them there, a stack of collectible plush animals in several sizes and dozens of varieties. If you have elementary age kids, you may well have a stack of them in your living room too!
We met, “Sam” our pink poodle, lounging at the front of The Red Balloon in Orleans. She was cute. She was pink. She promised to offer more than just another pile of stuffing – her dog tag hinted at hours of online interaction, learning, play, and fun. It was a summer day. A long summer day. Sam came home with us.
Ganz is the company behind Webkinz. The third-generation Toronto-based company was founded in 1950 and mostly sells things like gift dolls, gift candles, and the like, what it describes as “loveable animals and decorative accessories” – aka, all that stuff you have to dust. Nothing high tech, nothing revolutionary here.
But about a year ago it launched a new product line that combines cute plushness with a sort of G-rated Sims online game. The way it works is this: you buy the critter in a retail store. The critter comes with a special code. You log in with the special code and then proceeded to buy food, clothes and furniture for you virtual pet, feed the pet, talk to the pet, play various quasi-educational games to make money for the aforementioned items, and do a little structured interaction with other Webkinz owners. Oh, and you get a lot of encouragement to return to the retail store and buy more Webkinz so you can collect them all.
It’s a very familiar pitch with an interesting online twist, a twist that has helped make the toys a popular accessory in the early elementary grades, and that has helped a very traditional gift product company figure out how to bridge retail and online categories and how to use each to cross market the other.
Of course, the way it really works is this: Once you get the toy home, your 8-year old goes to the website, www.webkinz.com, and promptly yells for you to help because when she tries to create a user name, her name is already taken (of course). About 20 minutes later you think of name that isn’t taken. She logs in.
She starts out the game with Webkinz dollars, which she promptly spends on pink parfaits, pink poodle beds, and other pink virtual merchandise. In a very Sims-like interface, she arranges the goodies, talks to the pet, and moves the pet around. Having “Sam” drive the pink poodle car was especially popular.
But now the (virtual) money is gone! So we – yes, I am happy to be included in the adventure because as in all media, parental involvement really does make a difference even if the parental unit involved really doesn’t care for pink poodle parfait – we are off to visit Quizzy, where we try out different quiz games that are selected by age range and vary in level and content in an age appropriate manner. Math, science facts, etc.
Then we are onto the arcade, where you catch falling candy or musical monsters or play the game of the day, which features bonus (!) Webkinz dollars! Work at the job of the day. Spin the Wheel of Wow to see what you win. Read the newspaper to learn about the newest Webkinz.
Oh, oh, Sam-the-poodle reports she is hungry. Rush to the W-store to buy more pink poodle parfaits. Jump to the pet’s room, feed the pet, talk to the pet ...
Are you getting the idea yet?
The world is delivered via a Flash interface in a web browser, so it can feel a little slow sometimes, but there’s no software to install, nothing special to load or learn how to use. It just “works.”
The graphics are basic, yet appeal to the elementary school sensibility. There’s nothing sinister, except for the underlying ‘buying is good’ message. There’s a lot of stuff to look at and play around with in the virtual world and the real stuffed animal is soft and squishy and cuddles under the covers when it’s lights out time.
For $10.99 for the critter and year of Webkinz world, well, that’s not a bad deal for a long hot hot hot summer day and for a peek into a new way of playing, where the virtual world and real world interact and intersect and the kids use each with equal interest, equal comfort.
There’s a business case here for the ways a traditional company can leverage its base without losing it ... and there’s also a little snapshot into the world of tomorrow, where virtual and real will increasingly interact and intersect, driven by a generation that is growing up with toys that do both and an understanding of a space that encompasses all.
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