TORONTO, and LOS ANGELES, July 17 -- Thinkway Toys, a leading interactive toy developer and NeoPets, Inc., one of the largest online global youth communities, have announced a licensing agreement to develop a line of interactive toys featuring characters and themes from the highly popular youth entertainment web site http://www.neopets.com. This agreement represents NeoPets' first multi-national license, and will expand the company's existing merchandising program beyond United States borders.
"NeoPets has definitely tapped a special chord with young people around the world," says Albert Chan, CEO of Thinkway Toys. "A property like this is very rare. We are pleased and honored to be working with such an exciting company."
Plans for the NeoPets toy line will begin with strategic launches in both the spring and fall of 2003. Three Neopian product lines are under development -- interactive pets, a comprehensive "NeoSystem(TM)" of toys that will interact with one another to simulate the play of the NeoPets website, and a series of interactive dolls based on the popular NeoPets "Faeries." New technologies that create seamless play patterns are core to the toy line. Advertising support for the line will include national TV, print, and Internet-based initiatives.
"We feel very fortunate to partner with such an innovative and quality company as Thinkway Toys," says Doug Dohring, chairman and CEO of NeoPets, Inc. "Their string of past successes makes us confident they can add another new and very exciting offline dimension to the NeoPets brand."
Thinkway and NeoPets have also entered into a marketing agreement to promote Radio Disney Pop Dreamers using NeoPets' unique Immersive Advertising(TM) concept that integrates advertisers' products into the site's content in a highly interactive and engaging manner. As part of the campaign, the NeoPets' site will be linked to the Thinkway Toys site, featuring the Radio Disney Pop Dreamers in a special themed section with games, videos, music, and dress-up play.
Numerous Fortune-1000 and other prominent advertisers such as Nestle, Kellogg's, Mars, Campbell Soups, H. J. Heinz, Procter & Gamble, Universal Studios, DreamWorks, Turner Broadcasting, Kraft Foods, Mott's, Carl's Jr./Hardees, Warner Bros., Hollywood Records and Hershey's have embraced Immersive Advertising on the NeoPets web site to reach the youth market.
Thinkway Toys is a global manufacturer/distributor of interactive toys for kids of all ages. The company developed the original Buzz Lightyear toy from the Disney/Pixar animated film Toy Story. Buzz Lightyear and related Thinkway-developed products have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in retail sales. Thinkway Toys, which holds licenses for other Disney lines including Disney Princess, Radio Disney Pop Dreamers, Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc., also produces toys for girls and boys under a variety of the company's private label brand names.
The fastest growing online youth network in the world, NeoPets has registered more than 34,000,000 accounts over the past two and a half years. The site provides an unparalleled, multi-faceted interactive entertainment experience for its members. NeoPets has consistently ranked as one of the 10 stickiest web sites in the world (according to Nielsen//NetRatings), generating more than 1.5 billion page views per month.
