Birthday Card plus technology turns crying baby into calm baby !
That is what a Florida based company stumbled upon by mistake while giving a demonstration at a mall to a local retailer of what they term the best birthday cards for kids.
It was Monday afternoon in Aug 2011, when in the Florida Mall, Shane Johnson was about to demonstrate a line of products to a local retailer within the mall. While doing the normal demonstration, in the toy store, he noticed a small baby around 7 months old starting to cry uncontrollably.
Without hesitation, he abruptly stopped the demonstration and walked turned to the child to comfort him. Unknown to him, Johnson was still holding the portable DVD player where his demonstration of his product was still running. Much to his surprise as he stood there, the baby went from the scream, to calm and then to giggling.
He looked and noticed that the baby had become focused on DP the puppy dog, one of the characters of DP and his friends by DVD Portraits, his employer. The baby had been watching the puppy singing to him all along and it was not the cooing that had calmed the baby down but the birthday card! So this really were the best birthday cards for kids and babies?
The toy retailer was sold and placed an order the same day. So by accident, DVD Portraits had stumbled with something that had potential for a new market with their new technology in the greeting card market.
From that point, Shane took this information back to his R&D team and they decided to run tests. They gathered a group of mothers with babies and toddlers, using their local schools and Facebook friends and asked the mothers to take a card and play the card when their children aged from 4 months thru 3 years old started to cry and observe the results.
Much to their amazement, 80% of all the children studied would calm down once the card was played. Although no independent study has been carried out, it would be a great find for a $5 birthday card for kids, that could do for parents what often had them scratching their hairs out trying to soothe their child.
So what is this technology that we are talking of ? Well it is well known that the card industry is losing steam to addressing children of today the technology tribe you can call it. Initially this company spent 2 years in development of their 3D birthday and Christmas cards to attract the kids market from 0-10 year olds. Part of the research showed that digitized products would stimulate the buying but not the norm that the vast majority of card industry had followed such as ecards.
Research had shown that 3D animation was a major hit with children from its inception to big screen do you remember Toy Story. Why? Because to children, the relationship to cartoon based pets became a reality. With the addition of 3D models (now the norm for all big box movie producers) the child is placed in another dimension of reality. So the whole design of the birthday cards had to be one which incorporated 3D models, for which they used pets.
To bring the pets to life, the firm turned to a format which most people are familiar with and do not find alien when it comes to technology DVD something that a vast majority of people have in their house and play on TV.
The research had paid off and sales are steadily growing as people who have children, tend to know what type of TV shows their children are watching, combined with a card that will actually get their child excited.
However, with a combination of 3D animation, which offers tender exposure of a puppy dog with a soft voice and “in your soul†peering eyes, this company could have stumbled onto something that possibly opens up a whole new meaning to the birthday card married to technology, calming a baby!
DVD Portraits are in the process of getting independent testing by child psychologists as we speak, so parents keep your fingers crossed to an end to the stressful crying.
http://www.dvdportraits.com
DVD Portraits is an animation toy manufacturer in Orlando, Florida, that specializes in technology and toys for ages 0-12.www.dvdportraits.com