Pokemon in USA Today! Check out HAS!Pok‚mon poised to stomp Elmo, Furby Kids choose to collect 'em all, and marketers are raking in billions
By Thomas Content
USA TODAY
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Pok‚mon, the game kids can't stop talking about and parents don't understand, is a craze that appears to know no bounds.
It started as a video game in Japan and created a buzz in kids' Internet chat rooms even before a $14 million marketing push last year by Nintendo of America, which has the licensing rights to Pok‚mon outside Asia. The result is a blockbuster marketing coup.
Pok‚mon, Japanese for 'pocket monsters,' is a game built on 151 cute characters with names like Pikachu, Charmander, Bulbasaur and Jigglypuff. Pok‚mon is everywhere -- video game, TV show, toys, trading cards and, starting today, Pok‚mon: The First Movie.
All this has created such a buzz that:
* Factories making Hasbro toys have expanded production by 20 times this year and still can't keep up with demand. Hasbro plans to introduce hundreds more Pok‚mon products next year, after selling about 100 products this year.
* Total worldwide sales of licensed Pok‚mon products -- dolls, puzzles, board games, key chains, trading cards, video games, apparel -- will approach $6 billion this year, equivalent to the damage wrought on the East Coast this fall by Hurricane Floyd.
* Nintendo shattered previous Game Boy sales, with 1 million copies of Pok‚mon Yellow selling in its first two weeks on the market last month. The three Pok‚mon video games have helped boost Game Boy sales to 8 million this year from 3.5 million in 1998.
* Burger King logged 1.3 million hits on its Web site in six hours Monday, the first day of its Pok‚mon movie promotion. That's more than eight times typical volume, and it forced the company to upgrade its server.
* Two bright yellow Volkswagen Pikachu Beetles, outfitted with horns and a tail and filled with Pikachu toys, were included in the FAO Schwarz ultimate holiday toy catalog this fall. Price: $39,500 each. The first sold in three hours, the second after several weeks.
* More than 45,000 kids flocked to the Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis on a July weekend to play Pok‚mon and trade cards. Last weekend, thousands of kids attended events in Miami, Malibu, Calif., and Knoxville, Tenn.
* Elementary and middle school principals in Wisconsin, Ohio, Colorado and other states have declared their schools Pok‚mon-free zones because kids were trading the cards rather than studying.
'Whoever came up with Pok‚mon knew exactly what they were doing,' says Bonny Kaster, a 17-year-old fan in Green Bay. 'They said, 'We're going to market this thing until it explodes.' '
The collectible aspect of Pok‚mon, which recalls the heyday of baseball-card collecting, has created a kind of kids' currency, says Peter Silsbee, who tracks children's attitudes for the Roper Youth Report.
'It's really empowering for kids. When we used to play Monopoly, one of the most important people to be was the banker,' he says. 'In Pok‚mon, everyone's the banker, and they're trading stocks. The more stocks you have, the more powerful you are.'
Priced right
The toys cater to kids' varying allowances, from 11-card packs of trading cards listed at $3.29 to the plush 8-inch I Choose You Pikachu that sells for $24.99 to the Game Boy video game Pok‚mon Yellow that's $29.95.
Pok‚mon: The First Movie and Burger King's toy and card giveaways will feed the fad heading into the holiday season. Analysts predict Pok‚mon's popularity will surpass that of Furby, Tickle Me Elmo and Power Rangers in past years.
Pok‚mon's marketing power derives from its wide appeal to boys and girls ages 4 to 14. Young kids watch the TV show and collect trading cards, while older ones master the intricacies of the video and card games. Past hot toys, such as Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, were aimed at boys.
Never before has there been such a broad line of different-themed products marketed to such a big group of youngsters, says Gail Tilden, head of Nintendo's Pok‚mon efforts.
'It's going to be a huge Pok‚mon holiday,' says Jim Silver of The Toy Book. 'The thing about this phenomenon that's different from others is that it's completely kid-driven.'
Kaster, a high school senior, heads a Pok‚mon club at the Boys & Girls Club in Green Bay.
'I started because I thought they were cute,' she says. 'It's a great video game because you're raising these little creatures that are unique. And you get to play against your friends.'
Pok‚mon has overtaken the club. On a recent day after school, the pool tables stood empty. Next to one table stood a group of kids with bartering on their minds. Their faces turned serious and pensive as they deliberated which cards they might part with in a trade.
'If you see a crowd of kids crowding around one person, it's Pok‚mon trading,' says Chauncey Hughes, 11. Hughes, who has been trading for a few weeks, has about 70 cards. 'I saw a lot of other people with Pok‚mon cards, so I wanted them, too,' he says.
Across town at MacArthur Elementary School, Principal James Anderson has banned Pok‚mon trading cards from school. But, he says, Pok‚mon stole the show during a drawing at the school's fall festival last month. 'When these cards came up, the lights literally lit up in the eyes of these kids,' Anderson says. 'We had some other valuable items, like two tickets to a Packers game, and the kids were more interested in the Pok‚mon cards.'
Desire to gamble
To Pok‚mon detractors, children are being manipulated into living up to a materialistic message conveyed by the Pok‚mon motto: 'Gotta Catch 'Em All.'
The difficulty of finding rare cards, such as the coveted holographic Charizard, has prompted comparisons to a lottery. A mint-condition holographic Charizard sold for $80 to the 48th bidder Tuesday on the Internet auction site eBay.
Critics say Pok‚mon fosters a desire to gamble among a group that experts say is at high risk for compulsive gambling.
'By age 5 and 6, kids are so heavily into it, they are having tantrums over trying to get the right card,' says Diane Levin, a founder of Boston-based Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children's Entertainment. 'They'll get a pack and break down and start crying in the store. For all kids, there's the element of gambling for something that's pretty meaningless.'
Peggy Charren, founder of Action for Children's Television, notes Pok‚mon is much less violent than other TV shows but questions the fad's role in the over-commercialization of childhood.
But even critics note some positive aspects of Pok‚mon. Kids are learning 'problem-solving strategies and how to take information and assimilate it and come out with a prediction of who may win in a given situation,' Anderson says.
Nintendo and Hasbro hope to keep Pok‚mon fresh by rolling out new products. Next year, as many as 100 new characters are expected to be featured in the new video game, Pok‚mon Gold and Silver. By the end of 2000, those characters will surface in the TV show, trading cards and the second movie.
'They're beginning to understand that the longevity is built in when the story line keeps developing -- particularly when you get into the trading aspects of it,' says consumer-behavior expert Michael Solomon of Auburn University. 'It lets the child be much more involved in perpetuating the fad. They're more invested in it.'
But at some point, all fads die, marketing experts say.
'This is definitely a juggernaut. The big question on something this white-hot is always how long can it last?' says Martin Brochstein, executive editor of Licensing Letter.
Even some kids are wondering when this fad will fizzle. 'They're pushing it too hard now,' Kaster says. 'I can't walk into a store without a Pikachu staring at me.'
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