Bashing The Hamster

There is no resisting brilliant and invasive marketing. This hit home yet again when, this morning, I had the dubious honor of holding in my hand a sample of the new “Zhu Zhu Pet” which is, as everybody knows, the new “hot” holiday toy. It’s not a thing of beauty nor is it really all that well manufactured. It’s just a round, hamster-like, slightly fuzzy thing in a box that, somehow, every child seems to want under his/her tree/bush. Never mind that in a very short time it will end up under every child’s bed/dresser, deservedly abandoned as the lamest thing that has ever come down the holiday pike.

An article in, what else, The NY Times explains it all. Last summer, executives and buyers from Toys R Us, who order such merchandise, designated the Zhu Zhu Pet as the toy they would market commercially this year and they ordered a million or so of them from Cepia, the small company that created the faux hamsters, and immediately went into their insidious, but not so subtle, marketing mode. The method is simple. All you do is drum into people’s heads that a certain product is the “hot” new product until they start to believe it and, Voila!, you have the hot new product that people clamor for. It’s just that, in this case, it’s a toy. A small, furry, self-propelling rodent that is on the market because parents want to buy their children what, in their blind perception, they think children think they want because…well, because they are told they should by Toys R Us. Sort of circular reasoning but still successful, as this year’s sales prove.

It is ever thus every December, only the product changes; and they are totally decided upon by executives of toy companies who don’t give a rat’s behind about the validity or appropriateness of the choice; only counting on the fact that sales will proliferate due to their blatant marketing. And we are such mortal fools that we helplessly fall into the trap. We buy Zhu Zhu Pets. It will be interesting to see what happens next year and, trust me, the "hot" toy is probably already in the warehouses, just waiting for Toys R Us to tell us what it is. Personally, I vote for the Tickle-Me Zhu Zhu Pet.