Fisher-Price

Our mission is to support today's families with young children, through a breadth of products, including toys and children's products that make early childhood more fun and enriching. Key Dates: Fisher-Price Inc. is the world's largest preschool products company. Fisher-Price has dominated the infant and preschool toy market for over 60 years and has become known for the high quality and durability of its products. Wholly owned by Mattel Inc. since 1993, Fisher-Price consolidated with other divisions of its parent to make up a single, massive marketer of toys principally for children under the age of five. Some of its best-known products include Little People playsets and Power Wheels ride-on toys. It markets several licensed toy lines, such as Sesame Street products and Disney, Winnie the Pooh, Blue's Clues, and Bear in the Big Blue House toys and games. The company makes toys for both boys and girls, with strong sellers in each category. It is also a leading manufacturer of infant furniture and car seats. Fisher-Price has outstanding brand name recognition and customer loyalty. The company operates as an umbrella over several Mattel units: Fisher-Price, based in East Aurora, New York; Tyco Preschool, based in Manhattan; and Mattel's Preschool unit, based in El Segundo, California. Fisher-Price was founded in East Aurora, New York, in 1930, by Herman G. Fisher, Irving L. Price, and Helen M. Schelle. While Price and Schelle had worked in retail businesses that featured toys among their inventory, Fisher brought to the group his experience in the advertising and sale of games. All three proved adept at knowing what children liked and were committed to the idea that the public would appreciate high quality toys. Though the founders knew little about the actual manufacture of toys, they reasoned that popular products would have, according to the company's first catalog, 'intrinsic play value, ingenuity, strong construction, good value for the money and action.' Specifically, they observed, 'children love best the gay, cheerful, friendly toys with amusing action, toys that do something new and surprising and funny!' Such beliefs proved correct. From a frame and concrete-block house turned manufacturing headquarters in East Aurora, Fisher-Price manufactured 16 different toys during its first year of operation. This line included Granny Doodle and Doctor Doodle, brightly colored wooden ducks that, when pulled, opened their beaks and quacked. During this time, Fisher-Price made its toys out of Ponderosa pine, a splinter-resistant wood. The wooden pieces were then joined by heavy steel parts and decorated with non-toxic lithographs and finishes, resulting in a uniquely durable and appealing product. Withstanding the effects of the Great Depression, Fisher-Price reported losses during its first four years of business and eventually developed a healthy reputation and customer base. In the early 1950s, Fisher-Price augmented its line of wooden toys by fashioning new products from a popular new material, plastic. Also during this time, other cereal companies, including General Mills, General Foods Corp., and Nabisco, acquired toy companies. While some industry analysts speculated that cereal companies were purchasing toy manufacturers that would produce 'premiums'--the small, inexpensive toys offered free inside cereal boxes--one toy company executive told Advertising Age that 'the toy business is not really geared to premium offers. The merchandise is too expensive to be a successful premium item. It can't build business.' Rather, some suggested, cereal and toy companies were merged, in part, to 'piggy-back' toy and cereal commercials. 'It's a natural thing to form marriages of convenience with toys and cereals. They're aimed at the same market,' one adman told Advertising Age . The ad agency of Waring and LaRosa handled advertising for both Quaker Oats and Fisher-Price, and under Quaker Oats ownership, Fisher-Price's spending on a