Build-A-Bear Adventure is a Fun Place!

Our son, Clarkson, went to a friend's birthday party today at an interesting new concept that Build-A-Bear has created called, "Build-A-Bear Adventure." The company actually originated in Saint Louis so they have tested-out various business ideas in the region before with this being the newest cool thing. 

You can check Build-A-Bear Adventure out at its website where you'll see the idea is you have a fun combination of activities. You get a party room where you can all enjoy birthday grub, everyone builds a bear, and then there is an arcade area for folks to play in. It is a bit like Build-A-Bear and Dave and Busters had a baby. The website says how it is great for everything from birthday parties to school outings, bridal showers, baby showers, and so forth. I know we all had fun!

Our visit to Build-A-Bear Adventure started with us checking in at the entrance and going to our party room. Once everyone had arrived we went to the area for building our new fuzzy friends. Certain bears and outfits were included with the party but folks could always add on other outfits or bears/creatures (I saw Sully from Monsters' Inc. for example, he was cute). After all the kiddos assembled a bear we went back to the party room and had pizza and treats. 

Then, we went over to the arcade area. There was everything from racing games, to games that awarded (digital) tickets, crane games, and a really cool one called, "Water Fantasy," that shot actual water onto a video screen and had the creatures in the game getting shot with water reacting. That was wild. Clarkson loved running around the arcade area with his friends and seeing all the fun games lighting up.

Everyone had a great time at the Build-A-Bear Adventure. We appreciate our friend inviting us for such a fun birthday party and I'd encourage anyone in the Saint Louis area who needs to have a party to check out Build-A-Bear Adventure. Assuming it does well I bet they'll be expanding the concept into other areas as well before too long in the future!

Baby Yoda Toys Are Imminent

The Child AKA Baby Yoda absolutely took the internet by storm when he captured the hearts of basically anyone who watched, "The Mandalorian." He was kept a secret, however, so very few people knew about him until the show officially revealed the cute being. For that reason, it has taken some time for companies aware of the internet's favorite alien to make official Baby Yoda toys. A lot of unofficial merchandise has filled that hole, but now we are at a point where licensed Baby Yoda toys are imminent. Lego Baby Yoda, Build-a-Bear Baby Yoda, basically anything that can be sold to people demanding some cuteness in their life.

By Christmas of 2020 there will be more Baby Yoda toys, games, dolls, Funko Pops, and themed clothing than you'll be able to fit in even the roomiest man cave/she shed/baby bunker. I like Baby Yoda even if I think he's a little overexposed in memes currently, so I have no problem with this influx of stuff with the sweet critter. I just hope everyone has steeled themselves for their kids/spouses/friends hounding them to buy Baby Yoda merch as a present.

Build-A-Bear and When Your Marketing Campaign is Too Effective

Build-A-Bear is known for having all kinds of cool stuffed animals you can, "Adopt," have stuffed in the store, and buy a bunch of accessories. It is a brand known for lots of cool characters and outfits, but not for being cheap. Hence, when a promotion was announced call, "Pay Your Age," which involved the person the bear is purchased for only having to pay what their age is in years, it got some buzz. I mean, if your kid is five years old you just have to pay five bucks for a cool bear--and then most likely more for all the outfits and accessories, but it's still a good deal, I would think. Everyone else thought so too because it was pandemonium at Build-A-Bear stores. People lined up hours before stores opened, lines of more than a 1,000 families, and before it even really got going the whole thing had to be shut down due to concerns for safety in regards to overcrowding and such. Build-A-Bear fell into its own trap of having too good a deal. Now everyone is mad and the company's CEO has been having to apologize on National Television for this fiasco.

The company has been offering various things to consumer as an apology, such as as $15 credit and continuing to offer, "Birthday Treats," bears to kids under 14 in the month of their birthday. Hopefully it will at least help a little bit to assuage the angered parents and their children who were let down after waiting hours only to go home empty-handed. This will probably cause Build-A-Bear to take a bit of a hit PR-wise, but in the end they can claim it was an effort to do something nice for customers that unfortunately backfired, so it isn't as bad of a look as it could've been. I mean, it was such an effective campaign consumers, "Went nuts," so I guess it shows there is plenty of demand for the product. The key element is to for the company to keep offering deals, just not deals so good it causes chaos.