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Invasion of the Bobblehead Snatchers
USA Today - Sports -- Michael Hiestand
Move over Beanie Babies: Theres a new doll in town, able to pull in 50,000 fans and turn into a collectible within a matter of hours. No less than 38 major sports teams plan to offer the nodding figures.
This season, some of baseball's biggest draws will be 7 inches tall.
And only their heads will move. Don't laugh. Hopeful team marketers predict bobblehead dolls, also knows as bobbing heads or nodders, might be poised to hit ballparks with the kind of wallop Beanie Babies packed in 1998.
And that's saying a log: Attendance figures suggested the furry toys were as big a fan draw that season as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, even though those sluggers were chasing Roger Maris' famous single-season home run record.
Bobbleheads aren't new. Nor are all bobbleheads suddenly hot commodities. But sports teams have found that when they pick a few games to give away thousands of bobbleheads billed as unavailable in stores, they create instant collectibles. The advent of the Internet has helped: Bobbleheads show up in online auctions within hours after teams give them away, then fetch more than $100.
Not surprisingly, fans respond favorably to freebies that can be quickly converted into cash. The Minnesota Twins, one of the handful of baseball teams to test bobbleheads last season, watched doll giveaways at four games last season produce an 80% jump in ticket sales.
"It was an absolutely phenomenal success," Twins marketer Patrick Klinger says. "Sure, we all had great hope, but it caught us all by surprise. Fans lined up 13 hours before our gates opened."
He got calls from about 70 other sports teams. At least nine NBA teams gave away bobbleheads this season, prompting attendance jumps and fans to line up early.
The 1-pound ceramic dolls inspire emotion. Philadelphia 76ers spokeswoman Karen Franscona describes what happened when Allen Iverson bobbleheads were offered to the first 5,000 kids through the door, which produced a sell-out vs. the Los Angeles Clippers: "It was mayhem. We had people renting children (to get the dolls). It was all unbelievable!"
But Rob Gallas, who oversees Chicago White Sox marketing, suggests bobbleheads are a fan magnet with a dark side. Like most major league teams, the White Sox will offer bobbleheads this season.
"This is the next Beanie Baby," he says. "And while these promotions are great, they have one drawback. Like with Beanie Babies, we saw people walk right in, get them, and walk right out. And that will break your heart."
Bobbleheads weren't born heartbreakers. Mark Skigen of Sports Accessories and Memorabilia (SAM) in Redwood City, Calif., got into the bobblehead business a decade ago and says, "At (memorabilia) shows, they all laughed at me. It was such a small niche. They weren't popular. Baseball didn't even want to give us a license."
Today, SAM sells $50 porcelain bobbleheads and $10 plastic versions. Noting bobblehead sales aren't exactley hot, Skigen seems a bit mystified: "I don't understand that craze, that huge demand for giveaways that's so much bigger than demand on the open market."
Kevin Isacson of Sports Collectors Digest agrees: "In the traditional hobby business, bobbleheads aren't a revenue generator. This comes in the back door."
Dolls that 'caught fire'
That door opened in 1999 when Malcolm Alexander talked to the San Francisco Giants. Alexander, a former Australian army major who specialized in counter terrorism, lives in Bellevue, Wash., and has a factory in China making novelties such as snow globes. The Giants wanted a Willie Mays bobblehead for a 1999 game promotion. Alexander says it took 7 months to "get the right style." The mission, he recalls: "Create a whimsical style. Create a personality for the doll itself!"
The result exceeded expectations.
"It was heavy," Giants senior vice president Mario Alioto says. "It felt like quality. It wasn't like getting a key chain."
Then last season, the Giants' Barry Bonds bobblehead, complete with earring, popped up in online auctions. Alioto sees a happy coincidence: "It's not that we were saying to resell them. But the idea caught fire."
Chris Wright, who markets the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves, saw attendance spike the team's five giveaways: "They pop up online even before we give them away. Dealers want to see how much they can get."
When the Timberwolves gave away 5,000 Wall Szczerbiak bobbleheads at a December game, someone inside the arena sold dozens of phony bobblehead coupons. The team switched to coupons meant to flummox counterfeiters.
"This is a craze that's really caught on," says Jay Deutsch, who says his Seattle-based Bensussen, Deutsch & Associates will supply bobbleheads to 16 MLB teams this season. Could collectors' fervor get even bigger as teams expand bobblehead promotions? "Bingo! Deutsch says.
Ingredients of a hit
Alexander, the ex-Australian commando, says he'll supply bobbleheads to at least 22 MLB teams this season, up from four teams last year. Teams, paying $2-$4 a doll, have put in orders ranging up to 50,000 for a single promotion. Alexander, once a U.N. peacekeeper monitoring Iraq-Iran hostilities, doesn't even try explaining his hot product to the folks Down Under, where bobbleheads are unknown.
Says Alexander: "My mother still doesn't understand what I do."
But John McDonough, the Chicago Cubs marketer who helped pioneer baseball's Beanie Baby craze, says it's not that complicated. The Cubs were the first to put Barbie in an MLB uniform, a giveaway he expects will continue to produce standing-room only crowds when Barbie appears for her third season at Wrigley Field this year. Not standing still, the Cubs will offer a Barney giveaway this season.
"If you can key into something that's not available elsewhere, so the only way you can get it is on a specific day at a ball park, you'll have a hit," he says. "As long, that is, as the brand, or product, is already embedded in the American culture."
Of course, creativity helps. Dave Coskey, Philadelphia 76ers senior vice president, says the club had fun with its bobbleheads. For its arena video screen, the team re-cut clips from the movie Rudy to make it appear that a coach gave an inspirational speech to a locker room of bobbleheads. And if some adults in search of bobbleheads offered free game tickets to parents willing to loan out heir children, Coskey says, well, so be it.
"You had that with Beanie Babies, too," Coskey says. "I told our staff it can all get tough, but it's a confirmation that what we're doing is a success."
Such success, he suggests, might have a long-term effect on how future generations see sports: "Anybody who tells you the point of these givaways is not to sell tickets is lying. But it's also important to introduce our product to kids or we won't have them down the road. This does it."
