AToys are a Must

Toysmart.com launched a $21 million marketing push to introduce itself to parents and teachers as an online source for what it calls “good toys.”

The campaign includes network TV spots, print ads in 17 publications, a 22-city Good Toy Tour, and intrusive elements such as gift packs for new moms and educational wallboards in hospitals, daycare facilities, and pediatricians’ offices.

The Web retailer offers more than 70,000 toys that it says are high-quality and have enduring value, but are not driven by fads, fashion, or violence.

As late as this summer, when the Waltham, MA-based company was all of six months old, toysmart.com enjoyed “zero market recognition,” says director of public relations Patrick Rafter.

“By the end of this year, we want to be thought of as the place to buys toys online,” he adds, noting that the campaign aims to reach 87 percent of toysmart.com’s target adult audience.

Toysmart.com gained a major leg up in August when Walt Disney Co.’s BuenaVista Internet Group purchased a controlling interest in the budding online retailer. BuenaVista paid $45 million, but toysmart.com stands to reap inestimable value from partnerships with Disney properties. It might, for example, get preferred advertising rates or placement on the Disney-owned ABC network, Rafter notes.

Arnold Communications, Boston, developed eight spots for network TV, while parent Snyder Communications, Bethseda, MD, handles the institutional billboards and gift packs. Mobile-Media Enterprises, Atlanta, handles the tour, which runs through Nov. 30 with five brightly-colored trucks visiting major cities.

Arnold also developed three 15-second spots for PBS, where toysmart.com begins this month one year as corporate underwriter of the Children’s Television Workshop’s Sesame Street.

B&G Foods, Inc., reversed sliding sales of its Toppers sandwich pickles and gained an all-time high pickle share in the New York market through a Win a Week in the Hamptons drive this past summer.

“The product was flying off the shelf,” says product manager Nat Rubin at the Roseland, NJ-based manufacturer. Toppers had been losing share for the past year to Camden, NJ-based Vlasic, Inc.’s Stackers, says Rubin.

The four-week promo broke in May and featured an FSI (with 50 cent coupons good on any B&G item 12 ounces or larger), radio spots, and stack displays at retailers. Chancellor Marketing Group, Richmond, VA, handled.

More than 10,000 entries were received from consumers in the markets of New England, metro New York, and New Jersey. One couple won round-trip transportation by limousine to the chic summer resort, $1,000 in spending money, and the use of a beach house with a fully stocked pantry.

Toppers posted sales gains of 29.3 percent in May and 24.3 percent in June, as B&G’s total pickle share reached 40 percent.

The promo gained almost 100 percent retail support as Chancellor localized 60-second commercials with tags for each retailer.

Holy Cow. Cranberry Juice drinks with calcium. What will they think of next? Northland Cranberries, Inc., Wisconsin Rapids, WI, offers consumers the chance to win a red Angus cow in introducing a new four-sku line of cranberry drink blends that feature the bone-building mineral under the Seneca brand name. Bottles sport an easy-grip design to set them apart from category leader Ocean Spray, says Northland Cranberries brand manager Jim Tierney.

An FSI featuring a mug shot of the cow ran Oct. 3 in 40 million Sunday papers in markets east of Denver where the drinks were introduced in June. With the calcium cocktails being rolled out west of the Rockies this month, the brand plans to launch a second FSI early next year, Tierney says.

To enter the sweeps, consumers fill out a form on the $1 coupon in the FSI, or on neck hangers featured in-store. Entrants with little grazing room in the backyard can choose $10,000 instead of the cow.

“We don’t expect the winner is going to take the cow,” says Tierney. “If the winner wants a cow, we will have to go out and deliver it to them. But we reserve the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value.”

Northland recently purchased the juice division of Seneca Foods Corp., Pittsford, NY.

Candy maker Just Born, Inc., Bethlehem, PA, is employing a co-marketed sampling program to introduce a Zours sour candy brand targeted at kids 11 to 17.

The brand launches next month via four million 6.5-oz. sample packages distributed through Minnetonka, MN-based Musicland Group’s 1,325 stores. Next spring, Minneapolis-based General Mills will put samples in 2.8 million boxes of Trix cereal. Together with the company’s Hot Tamales and Mike and Ike brands, Zours will be touted via a newly signed NASCAR partnership. The program will include an on-pack promotion leveraging the products as “The Choice of NASCAR.” TV and print ads will support.

Walt Disney Co. and McDonald’s take their three-year-old alliance to a new level with Millennium Dreamers, a worldwide recognition program for kids. The campaign kicked off Oct. 1, inviting adults to nominate kids who’ve done good deeds. Panels of local dignitaries will choose winners locally, and a total of 2,000 kids will win trips to Walt Disney World for a May summit. All nominees get a certificate of recognition in March, and franchisees get a kit to celebrate local winners.

Partner United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) helps recruit judges and world leaders to speak at the three-day summit.

The estimated $10-$12 million campaign is McD’s first global recognition program, and serves as a grassroots marketing platform for its franchisees. The chain taps its 3,000 U.S. franchisees and estimated 16,000 worldwide to solicit nominations via counter cards and posters in restaurants and through existing relationships with local schools.

McD expects participation from some 60,000 schools, the same number that took part in the chain’s Sue T. Rex classroom campaign in ’98.

McDonald’s kicked off the Oct. 1-Nov. 30 nomination period with McHappy Day, a one-day benefit for Ronald McDonald House Charities. McD donated $1 from every Big Mac Extra Value Meal it sold. Ads hyping the promo were low-key, because “we’re sensitive about overcommercializing Ronald McDonald House,” says senior vp-U.S. marketing Larry Zwain.

McD won’t advertise Millennium Dreamers at all. “We don’t want to position this as a promotion, but as a community outreach program,” a spokesperson says.

DaimlerChrysler, Detroit, and Fisher-Price, East Aurora, NY, are testing a car-seat safety program that rolls out nationally in early 2000. “Fit for a Kid” offers free inspection of car seats to make sure they’re safe. The program is currently in test in Washington, Denver, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Sacramento. Parents make an appointment at a nearby dealership via phone (877-FIT-4-A-KID) or online at fitforakid.org. Fisher-Price provides Safe Embrace car seats as loaners, and gives discounts on new car seats for parents whose seats don’t pass inspection. Once national, the program can handle 800,000 seats per year; inspections at community events this year totaled 30,000.