DUKKY

Every year, a new toy becomes the focus of holiday hysteria. Over the years, parents have fought crowds (and sometimes each other) to obtain Tickle Me Elmos, Furbies and Cabbage Patch dolls, just to name a few. It’s Christmas time again, so parents, choose your weapons and prepare to go to battle for this year’s “must-have” toy: robotic hamsters called Zhu Zhu Pets. Even if you don’t have kids, you’ve probably heard about the mechanical rodents, which have been disappearing from store shelves since well before Thanksgiving.

What do Zhu Zhu Pets do? Well, they squeak and make noise, run around the floor or a little fake hamster cage, and make “tooth-brushing” and “toilet-flushing”sounds when they go into their little “bathrooms.” They can also drive little hamster cars around.

How did a robotic hamster that basically just runs around the floor and chirps become the most requested toy of the year? The success of Zhu Zhu Pets is even more unexpected when you consider that the toy doesn’t have a major toy company or the power of a popular TV show or movie behind it.

To jump-start demand for Zsu Zsu Pets, Cepia, the company behind the toys, used a series of clever marketing strategies to get the word out about Zhu Zhu Pets both online and off. Let’s take a look at what made it so successful:

• Giveaways: They began by releasing the toys exclusively in Phoenix, distributing them to children’s hospitals and even giving them away at a Arizona Diamondbacks game.

• Social media: Social media also played a part in the toys’ success. For example, according to this post on Social Media Today, Cepia provided free hamsters and accessories to influential Phoenix-area “mommy bloggers,” who hosted “hamster parties” to let kids get a sneak peak at them. This not only got people in Phoenix interested in the robotic furballs, it also helped get people talking online and created anticipation for the Zhu Zhu Pets’ national launch. Mommy bloggers and who received the faux rodents uploaded videos of their kids playing with the toy hamsters on YouTube.

• Scarcity: From there, a national launch and traditional TV commercials combined with a hamster shortage to help get convince adults and kids alike that they needed these toys. Soon, the critters, which usually retail for around $10 without accessories, were disappearing from toy store shelves overnight, and the resulting scarcity only increased the demand. People started selling Zhu Zhu Pets on Amazon and Ebay for 4 to 5 times the suggested retail price.

Theirs was an approach that defied the traditional toy launch leading up to Christmas. But their atypical approach using grassroots, social media and viral distribution is spelling serious profits. If only Cepia could get them to reproduce like real hamsters!