Description: Stuffed animals you build at home
Main Pitch: "An adorable baby pet that you bring to life yourself"
Main Offer: $19.99 for two
Marketer: IdeaVillage
Producer: Infomercials Inc.
Website: www.WugglePets.com
Prediction: N/A
Because it’s a kids’ product, I haven’t written much about the monster success of Ontel’s Pillow Pets. But by now, everyone knows it was one of the biggest — if not the biggest —DRTV hits of 2010. I did well on TV and was a monster hit at retail ... which means we can now expect everyone in the industry to enter the category.
But as we saw with Allstar’s Snuggie, chasing fad items is a good way to lose money in this business. Happy Nappers may take a piece of a hot market because of timing and product similarities, but it is highly unlikely this Build-A-Bear type product, or the half dozen other varations on the ‘Pillow Pets theme’ that follow, will succeed. (I happen to know a little about this type of product from a personal failure on DRTV a few years ago, and even a major toy company failed to make the idea work at retail.)
On the other hand, Infomercials Inc. knows a lot more than me about how to market to children, so you should probably take my comments with a grain of salt. I don’t write about kids’ products for a reason: It’s just not my area of expertise.
