Web WonderAll things web related plus a few surprises

A Webkinz is a Small Toy Pet With Huge “grass Roots” Appeal

Have you ever heard of a toy that sold more than one million units in it first fourteen months without the parent company ever spending any money to advertise it? How about the fact that it is only sold in certain specialty stores (and cannot be purchased in many popular toy stores) yet these toy pets are selling at the rate of over ten thousand each week. When I last checked Ebay, the site had over ten thousand of these toys for sale. As you can see, this toy pet is wildly popular with the more than five hundred thousand customers who have “adopted” it for children between the ages of five and twelve. The name for this toy is Webkinz.

I first discovered Webkinz several weeks ago. After a day of teaching first grade, my wife returned home with that gleam in her eye that tells me that she has thought of a new and unique way to educate her first graders. She told me that her classroom had adopted a pet frog called “Froggie” and that the children were very excited. I thought a pet frog would be great in a first grade classroom and wanted to know who would feed it. She told me that feeding “Froggie” would require money that the children could raise online through the pets interactive website. I was confused until she told me that the frog was really a toy pet called a Webkinz.

Since I had never heard of a Webkinz, I was interested in learning more. Webkinz is produced by the Ganz company headquartered in Toronto, Canada. It is a small stuffed animal somewhat larger than the size of a beanie baby. There are about thirty five different types of Webkinz that can be purchased /adopted as pets. You can adopt pets that include pandas, cats, poodles, pigs, monkeys, and frogs. Webkinz pets can only be bought for adoption through specific independent gift and toy stores. The adopted Webkinz comes with a secret code that is used to register the toy pet and gain access to its highly interactive world in cyberspace. In this world in cyberspace you can name and feed the pet, design its room and raise cash through interactive games that can be used to develop the toy pet’s life and story. The online activities are designed to teach children to be responsible, nurturing pet owners and to save and budget. The Ganz company also now sells Webkinz charms ,clothing and playing cards.

My wife certainly proved to be correct in the adoption of the toy pet frog for the classroom. Her first graders loved playing and learning with “Froggie” their adopted class mascot . Some of the educational activities in her class room that used the Webkinz included writing about the frog using descriptive paragraphs with illustrations, researching the red eye tree frog as well as math activities that sometimes utilized the Webkinz interactive website. The class even wrote a letter to the Ganz company suggesting ideas for future Webkinz toy pet designs.

However, it was her final class activity that astounded me the most. She asked the class how many of these adopted toy pets that they owned at home. When the counting had stopped, her twenty five students told her that they owned four hundred twenty one Webkinz.

That unadvertised small toy pet certainly has huge grass roots appeal.

About the Author

James William Smith has worked in Senior management positions for some of the largest Financial Services firms in the United States for the last twenty five years. He has also provided business consulting support for insurance organizations and start up businesses. Visit his website at http://www.eWorldvu.com

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