Word: toying
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...brought you Furby is back and getting ready to launch yet another cute little electronic gadget. When Roger Shiffman walked away from his job as president of worldwide marketing for Hasbro in 2001, having earlier launched such blockbuster toys as Giga-pets, Poo-Chis and the chatty Furby, the industry was stunned. The former CEO of Tiger Electronics had pioneered the development of high-tech toys and then gone on to help Hasbro steward its branding strategies. But at 48, Shiffman decided to leave toyland behind. For several years he took cruises and worked on his golf game. After successful...
Some say the return of the toy world's storied visionary is not a minute too soon. Toys "R" Us, hurt by price cutting from rivals, recently went private, and FAO Schwarz's parent company twice filed for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, consolidation among toymakers means Hasbro and Mattel have ever more control over what toys get sold. But even those huge toymakers feel added pressure over what to produce, thanks to the growing buying power of such huge distributors as Wal-Mart. "We need a shake-up in toys," says toy designer and Marvel Studios CEO Avi Arad. "I'm sure...
Unlike the big toy companies, which rely on market testing and focus groups to refine their new offerings, Shiffman developed iZ by following his gut. He hired Jeff Breslow, president of Big Monster Toys, the Chicago design firm, to create the new toy. "He told me, 'I want another Furby,'" says Breslow, whose team produced the prototype three months later. iZ's blinking beak adds $1 in costs, but Shiffman insisted on keeping it. He incorporated a jack so that users can hook up their iPod to play their own songs pumped up with riffs from iZ. Suggested retail price...
Shifting home-video economics are a problem not just for DreamWorks. Pixar had to lower estimates for The Incredibles. Yet the issue is most acute at DreamWorks, which has had a tougher time finding its animation groove. Pixar is the one pumping out hit after hit, from Toy Story to A Bug's Life to Monsters, Inc., and that has attracted Wall Street's admiring eye. In Hollywood, it's said you're only one hit away from success. DreamWorks has high hopes for Bee Movie, with Jerry Seinfeld, and Shrek 3, both due out in 2007. But by then...
...Trail Goes Cold With a series of high-profile acquisitions over the past two years, Jon Asgeir Johannesson has become the best-known Icelander in Britain after singer Björk. Through privately held retail and real estate company Baugur, Johannesson, 37, has snapped up the famous London toy store Hamleys, fashion chains including Karen Millen and Oasis, jeweler Goldsmiths and, last year, the Big Food Group (which owns a supermarket chain called, handily, Iceland). But now, just as he's on the verge of his biggest deal to date, a $1.7 billion takeover of Somerfield, Britain's fifth largest...