Posted on 03/06/2005 4:33:15 AM PST by nuconvert
Inventors Find Niche in Office Toys
Sat Mar 5, 2005
By Jan Paschal
NEW YORK (Reuters) - If your bonus wasn't big enough, tell MoneyMan.
Or if you'd like to tell your boss where to go, download your disgust -- without fear -- on BossMan.
Sure, they're plastic and just 6 inches high.
These new action figures -- and techie counterpart GeekMan -- are "everyday superheroes" that give adults a way to let off steam or get some laughs out of the absurdities of the workplace.
"We're geeks. So we started with GeekMan," said Shirley Yee, 29, who creates the toys with her husband, Kris Schantz, 28, and artists who work for their company, Happy Worker Inc.
Together, these Canadian dot-com veterans came up with the GeekMan concept in 2002. A year later, they started Happy Worker (and its Web site, http://www.happyworker.com) in their Toronto home. Now they're looking for office space.
"We'll crack the million mark this year," Schantz said, projecting this year's sales in dollars after the buzz from February's American International Toy Fair in New York City.
They've discovered that making action figures as office toys for adults could be a solid niche.
"These are fun," said Reyne Rice, toy trends specialist for the Toy Industry Association, after looking at the Happy Worker toys. "They'd make a great office gift for a boss or a colleague. I could see someone personalizing them, like taking MoneyMan and putting their name on his briefcase."
Marianne Szymanski, co-author of "Toy Tips: A Parent's Essential Guide to Smart Toy Choices" and president of Toy Tips Inc., a Milwaukee publishing and toy research company, said her firm's surveys of executives show 82 percent would buy an office toy as a gift for a co-worker or supervisor.
People love toys on a desk for conversation pieces and to cut stress, Szymanski said.
HOLY ACCESSORIES!
The devil may be in the details, but with Happy Worker's toys, that's where the laughs are.
MoneyMan has "super-weapons on his belt," Schantz said. "There's a wad of cash -- that's magic because with enough money you can solve any problem -- and a calculator that translates all the financial fudge factors."
He comes with a piggy bank to "throw at someone if he's suffering red-line rage" and a shredder "to destroy the evidence," Schantz said.
"At a bank in Canada, someone got MoneyMan as a gift, and it was taken for ransom" by a rival department.
BossMan has three faces -- "just like a real boss. Sometimes he's happy, the next moment he's angry and there's the pensive face when he's not sure," Schantz said.
With his megaphone, "he shouts encouragement to the troops or in times of distress, he yells orders."
Israel Levarek, owner of Toy Tokyo in New York, said "everyday people" buy MoneyMan, BossMan and GeekMan. (Prices: $15 to $19 each at most specialty and online stores.)
Joanne Farrugia, owner of jaZams, a toy store at the edge of Princeton University's campus in New Jersey, said professional identity often comes into play when someone buys a novelty item like the Einstein action figures she sells.
A GOOD YEAR FOR ACTION FIGURES
The NPD Group, a New York-based market information company, doesn't track office toys as a category.
But NPD expects action figure sales to rebound this year, after dipping to $1.2 billion in 2004, said Anita Frazier, NPD's entertainment industry analyst.
That would be a bright spot for the U.S. toy industry, hit by retailers' bankruptcies in the last few years. U.S. toy sales fell 3 percent to $20.1 billion in 2004 from 2003, according to NPD.
"This year, several action hero movies are coming to the big screen ... and that drives action figure sales," she said.
"The ones attracting the most buzz in the toy industry are 'Star Wars,' 'Batman' and 'Fantastic Four,' a comic book property," Frazier said, adding that Hasbro (NYSE:HAS - news) has the "Star Wars" toy license, Mattel (NYSE:MAT - news) has "Batman" and ToyBiz has the "Fantastic Four" license.
A 1950s Batmobile and Rock N' Rollin Rides, like a 1968 Mustang that plays "When A Man Loves A Woman" -- are among the collectibles with office toy appeal shown at Toy Fair this year by Corgi USA, owned by Hong Kong-based Zindart Ltd.(Nasdaq:ZNDT - news)
For fans of edgier entertainment, McFarlane Toys will offer action figures based on "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride," an animated film set for September release.
Adults are an "evergreen" segment of the action figure market, Frazier said. In 2004, individuals age 18 and up bought 18 million action figures for themselves or another adult -- 14 percent of a total 127 million units sold, NPD data showed.
Finally, a Hillary action figure...
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