NYT article on new, improved "Ant Farm" (made by Uncle Milton Industries) ...................................
December 12, 2004
The Goods: Just Add Ants (and Crash Helmets)
BY BRENDAN I. KOERNER
A COMPANY can take shortcuts toward freshening a
decades-old brand for today's children. It can hire a
Nickelodeon staple as a spokesman, for example, or coin an
advertising slogan that's heavy on exclamation, like "Do
the Dew!" Or it can add an extreme-sports angle to a
tried-and-true product, as Uncle Milton Industries has done
to its 44-year-old Ant Farm.
The new version is called the Xtreme Ant Farm, and it looks
nothing like its rectangular forebear, which is fondly
remembered by many baby boomers for introducing them to the
joys of myrmecology (the study of ants). The classic Ant
Farm, which is still a top seller for Uncle Milton at
$9.99, is a thin plastic box that houses little more than
sand and a crude barn. But the Xtreme version, at $24.99,
resembles a city out of Buck Rogers, with two plastic domes
connected by a street-luge speedway. The larger of the
domes contains a multicolored skateboarding park,
ant-sized, of course; the smaller dome has a similarly
festive BMX biking arena.
"We tried to think of what the most popular extreme sports
are, but also what would fit in the context of an ant
farm," said Steven B. Levine, the chief executive of Uncle
Milton and son of the company's co-founder, Milton M.
Levine.
Given ants' propensity for scaling trees, for example, a
climbing wall was included below the large dome, complete
with brightly painted hand grips.
Conversely, during the testing phase, designers at Uncle
Milton, which is based in Westlake Village, Calif., decided
to eschew snowboarding, despite the sport's popularity and
Olympic status.
"Water and snow aren't really appropriate to ants," Mr.
Levine said.
But the company is not wedded to the idea of myrmecological
correctness, as evidenced by the inclusion of a
bungee-jumping platform at the top of the skate park.
The Xtreme Ant Farm was conceived in 2000, in an attempt to
appeal more to children than to their nostalgic parents.
"The classic Ant Farm may be more of a parental purchase,
trying to pass it down a generation," said Frank G. Adler,
Uncle Milton's executive vice president. By contrast, Mr.
Adler added, the goal of the Xtreme Ant Farm is to "catch
the eye of the kid."
To maximize the visual flair, more than 100 "paint
operations" - the number of times an assembly-line worker
or robot adds a splash of color - are involved in the
manufacturing of the Xtreme Ant Farm. The older version has
no paint operations; the frame and buildings are
exclusively green.
The Xtreme Ant Farm is also decked out with tiny ant
sculptures, depicting the insects participating in sports.
That was done to add an aura of excitement, since genuine
ants are unlikely to hop on a street luge or skate a
half-pipe.
Uncle Milton, a maker of educational toys, also sells frog
habitats and microscope sets. It attributes a good part of
its revenue growth - projected at 20 percent this year - to
the success of the Xtreme Ant Farm, which was introduced in
2001 and accounts for 10 to 20 percent of Uncle Milton's
overall ant-farm sales.
(The six-product line also includes miniature and
supersized versions of the classic setup, as well as an Ant
Farm Village featuring a town square.)
ONE part of the original concept has stayed the same: the
ants aren't included. Buyers must use a coupon to send away
for a free box of worker ants. That means relatively rapid
doom for the colony, given the absence of a fertile queen;
federal law prohibits the shipment of queens across state
lines.
Ant Farm owners, of course, are free to scoop up
prospective tenants at their next picnic. Alas, the odds of
finding an ant skilled in BMX racing are pretty much nil.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company. |
