Baby Steps Genius Approach
The market for children’s products is still relatively small, but this only means more opportunities for the likes of Pacific Entertainment. Marek Kolasinski investigates
FINDING a niche market and developing a product that will settle into it neatly is not an easy feat, yet it is a challenge that Larry Balaban, president of Pacific Entertainment Corporation, has taken up with the multi-award winning brand Baby Genius.
Baby Genius is a novel approach to children’s entertainment, bringing together music and images to create an experience which children will be able to watch and enjoy, but which will also encourage them to go and discover these things on their own. With an extensive range of DVDs and CDs, the Baby Genius range is committed to teaching children in a fun way and brings its own flavour of ‘edu-tainment’ with characters and tunes children can recognise and relate to. And with an agreement signed with Dufry – notably at JFK airport – and an exclusive distribution deal agreed with Motta Internacional for both domestic and duty-free outlets in Central and South America, the travel-retail side of the business has undoubtedly started on the right foot.
“We just thought that travel-retail was a channel that was neglected for certain types of customers and you have all these travel-retail customers going around the world buying things, and in a lot of cases they have children,” Balaban tells Frontier. “And it just seemed a good thing for them to be able to pick up a little toy or DVD or CD with which they could educate their kids. Or even use on the plane as nowadays you can buy a little DVD player for US$50.”
It is not always easy to find a decent array of products suitable to children, although some airports – such as Dubai and Singapore Changi – certainly have a generous selection of toys, books and other plush toys to please children of all ages. The potential is certainly there to develop the offer further and give parents who are looking for a last-minute gift (or an item to distract their children on the flight) something easy and quick to pick up while giving them the satisfaction of knowing that, on some level, they are participating in the development of their offspring.
“Baby Genius is a line of products designed to stimulate the development and well-being of small children by allowing them to connect, with their parents, with unique products like DVDs that take children on an adventure,” Balaban explains. “What we try and do is take kids on these wonderful play-dates, and while taking them on play-dates to zoos and water parks, etc, all over San Diego, we’re capturing the imagination of children while the camera is there kind of out of the way. Children experience things in a very specific way and we allow them to show other children what it would be like to do the same things.”
And in a world where parents are increasingly worried about the content of movies, video games, music CDs and even toys, having a visit to the San Diego zoo or taking an underwater adventure to the compositions of classical music masters will provide many a parent with a sigh of relief and the knowledge that their children will be safe for a little while longer yet. And as if this was not enough, Baby Genius also incorporates basic numbers and letters within its material to further boost children’s education. “Every one of our DVDs and multiple CDs include numbers and letters,” Balaban enthuses, “and in my opinion, if you have your numbers and letters mastered you go into pre-school with everything you need to be successful in life. And for US$9.99, it’s a pretty good bargain.”
Price is that other all-important factor that makes Baby Genius so appealing to parents. Buying a DVD or double-CD for US$6.99, US$7.99 or US$9.99 is a very attractive offer. Moreover, each product comes with extra material. For instance, each DVD will come with its companion CD, which is effectively the movie’s soundtrack. And each CD comes in a two-pack, which means that you buy two for the (very low) price of one. This reinforces the appeal of the Baby Genius brand for those parents who want to pick up something for their children and do not want to spend a lot of time doing it. Time at the airport is still relatively limited – and sometimes lengthy security queues will make it even shorter – and when confronted with items costing upwards of US$50, it is understandable that a parent might wish to have a good look at what is on offer. But for under US$10, and for something that will help in the child’s
development to boot, there is little indecision to be had. And it is again an element that plays in Pacific Entertainment’s favour as far as retailers are concerned.
But in order to maximise the potential, there are certain requirements that Balaban insists on to ensure
the best possible exposure and impact for the brand. “Any real partnership is a cooperation,” he says. “We’re
a company that really wants to make things great for everybody that we work with. We work as a partnership in everything we do: we design custom SKUs and packaging and displays so that we can integrate in the stores in a very particular way. It is important for us. I don’t want to be sitting on a shelf behind three other things. In order for us to be successful in duty-free we need to have our own space and signage in the store that needs to be considered a category. And that is what we’re hoping to do: to be a category that is designed to help kids. We do everything we can to create that type of environment, and in the stores we want to be playful and fun. We’re creating SKUs with little puzzles and little things that will be easy for people to pick up.”
Part of the novelty of this approach is probably its end-goal to get the children out and about rather than watching more of the same. The DVDs are designed to inspire and stimulate the children’s natural curiosity and enthusiasm, and create in them the desire to learn and discover more via the images but also the music these are set to.
“We want to inspire a child to touch and smell a flower as opposed to jump on it,” says Balaban. “And all the while it is all set to incredible music, and our sing-alongs are incredibly successful here in the States and around the world where we engage children by allowing them to sing-along with the action. On every DVD we offer English and Spanish, and there is a little magical musical helper who will say the words for you in English or Spanish. Everything we do is inspired by music and is trying to make music interesting and cool for children.”
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