This year, Montreal-based toymaker WowWee has come up with a new must-have holiday gift, one that rivals the Beanie Baby or Cabbage Patch Doll. CTV News reports that Fingerlings, animatronic baby monkeys, have raced to the top of the “hot toys” list.
The story behind Fingerlings
Sydney Wiseman, a brand manager at WooWee was obsessed with pygmy marmoset monkeys as a child. And while she was never to own one of the cute little animals, she could have one if it were a toy. Years later, she pitched the idea of a robotic finger-monkey and ended up working with the WooWee team to create the Fingerling.
The little robotic monkey is not the usual item WooWee is known for, like drones and robotic cars, but it certainly became a huge hit — So much so that they have sold out in stores across Canada and the U.S. since they debuted in August, according to the New York Times.
As of last Friday, various colors of Fingerlings accounted for three of the top five toys on Amazon.com-Canada and are described as the “hottest toys of the year” by Forbes.com, ToysRUS, and Target. WowWee’s creative director, Benny Dongarra, who was part of the team who designed the Fingerling, always believed the toy would be a hit.
“It’s hard to say because we’ve seen that coming with a lot of items, but it actually came to fruition with Fingerlings,” he said in an interview at the company’s Montreal headquarters. Talking about Sydney Wiseman, who pitched the product, Dongarra said, “She said, ‘can we make this into a toy? I said, ‘yeah, I think we can do that.”‘
Internet influencers used
To get their new product out and into the public’s eye, WooWee used an innovative marketing tool. The company turned to the Internet, sending the toys to YouTube influencers. Many of them shot video with the Fingerlings that were seen by millions of viewers.
With the Fingerling becoming an overnight success because of the Internet, it has also created a bunch of counterfeiters. Today is reporting that third-party sellers on Amazon have been issuing refunds to customers after failing to send them their toys.
WowWee has filed a lawsuit against 165 companies for selling fake Fingerlings. Company CEO Richard Yanofsky has notified customs officials around the world to stop fakes coming in from China, where the real ones are also made.
