Holiday 'Toy Story' - Thwoop.com

Thwoop.com - Niche e-commerce startup to build first broadband kids channel

When Ty Simpson wanted to find merchandise for his daughter, who was really into The Wiggles, Simpson had an epiphany. Retail consolidation was squeezing toy brand owners - who couldn't find shelf space for even popular brands and well known characters.  At the same time the rise of Amazon and eBay was creating an e-commerce opportunity that had people searching for merchandise and toys with these popular brands. 

It was in this opportunity that Ty's Toy Box was born. Simpson was able to get big toy companies, like Mattel, to realize that they needed to take control of their retail destiny and start finding ways to interact with consumers other than the traditional channels.  And consumers seemed ready to embrace more choice, with Simpson's Toy Box offering brands far beyond the seven or eight that you were able to find in big box retailers with limited shelf space and a focus on mass market merchandise.  Mattel launched The Doodlebops exclusively on Ty's Toy Box.



Now, with Ty's Toy Box a powerhouse e-tailler of kids toy brands - Ty Simpson turned his eye on other places where limited shelf space was leaving the consumers with limited choice.

The result of this exploration was the launch of Ty's Toy Box's first foray in to children's entertainment  -  a broadband full-screen entertainment channel:  Thwoop.com.

"Thwoop",  that great chartoonish sound effect that you can almost imagine  yourself hearing,  is taking Ty's vision of giving consumers more choice in a digital world and expanding it to programming.

As Simpson explains it;  "There are hours and hours of great episodes of children's entertainment that have seen their run on Cable TV,  and are now lost to viewers and fans."  The concept of Thwoop is simple,  as toy brand owners are looking to maximize their merchandise licensing - the one thing they they need to be sure they have is a steady stream of new fans.  But new fans can't exist if they aren't able to see the episodes.  

So Thwoop is bringing many of those best love episodes back to life.  And - because Ty's Toy Box and sister site All Aboard Toys is sitting front and center on the web,  they're the first to know if you or your kids are searching for a specific character or episode. 

So Thwoop will be promoted to visitors of all the Brand Performance sites (parent company of Ty's Toy Box and All Aboard Toys)  and Thwoop will be able to serve visitors ecommerce needs as well.  Thwoops was built on the Magnify.net platform, where I serve as CEO.  While we didn't initially see e-commerce and content as immediate fit,  we're excited by what Simpson and his team have done, and think it's just the tip of the iceberg.

The thing that is truly interesting about Thwoop is that it is a real world example of how the changes in both media and marketing are shifting from centralized control of scarcity, to consumer driven content.  What Simpson has plugged into is the emergence of customized content for small,  but clearly addressable audiences. 

The Long Tail of Toys is a great emerging trend

And the impact on content creation, distribution,  and the video ecosystem can't be understated.  While cable has tried hard to reach into niches like food and how-to and science,  the mainstream advertisers have mostly rejected digital cable as valued added CPM opportunity.  But long tail content collections like Thwoop.com are built to serve both brands and audiences,  so their intrinsically ad friendly.

In a perfect world,  the relationship between advertisers and content is organic,  useful,  and customer friendly. 

In looking at Thwoop.com,  you can get a glimpse at just how that may look.