Posts Tagged ‘Techno Source’

2011 Giggle Awards for New York Toy Fair

It was a very productive toy fair for us.  We had plenty of meetings and booths to walk through to keep us on our aching feet for 3 full days.   It is funny that although toy making is BIG business with suits and ties reigning supreme, it’s still a bunch of adults playing with toys and games.  We’d walk past booths to see people checking out teddy bears, throwing balls, and laughing at the games they are considering buying for their stores.  We feel sure that being a toy inventor is the best job ever!

No, our products did not win any awards THIS year.  (There is always next year!) However, we did see things that we thought were deserving of some recognition, so we are giving it to them in our blog.  There is nothing to win with a Giggle award, no money and no fame, but the joy of maybe knowing someone out in the big world liked what you did.

The vast majority of booths at this show are dreadfully, dreadfully boring.  Half way through the upper floor I can feel my eyes begin to glaze over.  There was one booth stood out to us.  It was colorful, smartly arranged, had good display space and was, well, fun.  It made us stop to look at everything.  Winner of the Best Booth award goes to: Ugly Dolls.  Although I was midway through my candy bar, I didn’t let a mouthful of chocolate stop me from letting them know how much I loved it too!  Yea for them for being creative and standing out from a bunch of other boring booths!

I doubt we’d pick right if we were asked to let you know what the next big toy is for next year.  That’s sometimes just luck of the draw and good TV advertising.  But there are good ideas out there and we found one we liked.  Winner of the best new item we saw is: Tetris Link by Techno Source.  It was a great execution of a classic electronic game.  It had good design and game play.  According to the website it will be in stores June 2011.

Since these are our awards, we can give out awards in whatever category we like.  This Giggle award is for the best marketing video we saw in a booth.  This award goes to Klutz.  They played a video at the entrance to their booth that showed how their Klutz books get made.  It was an extremely creative look at their employees and offices using stop action video.  We stood and watched the whole thing and laughed.  I always enjoy people making good fun of themselves.

There you have it the 2011 Giggle awards.  Congratulations to the winners that stood out in the sea of competition.  To those companies out there that would like to strive toward a Giggle award mention next year, here some secrets to give you an edge:  be original, design smart products, and making us laugh never hurts.

“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.”  ~Jimmy Johnson