• by Karl Greenberg , August 2, 2007

Mattel is targeting kids who want to play guitar but are too young to play a real one, with a new product that bridges the gap between push-button toy guitars for very young kids and products like the PlayStation 2 "Guitar Hero" game for older kids.

The new product, which the company is launching in the fall, is shaped like a Stratocaster variety axe, but with color-coded buttons on the neck. The buttons are placed so that the player's hand position mimics positions for basic chords and notes on a real guitar. The guitar also has six strings that don't extend along the neck and are intended for players to practice strumming.

There are also cartridges that slide into the guitar and play interactive games and instruction videos when the guitar is connected to a TV. Mattel will promote with an integrated campaign using Nickelodeon star Drake Bell, star of "Drake and Josh," who is launching his solo music career this summer and will be in a Lion's Gate movie, "College," next spring.

In Mattel's TV spot for the product, which airs in late August, Bell walks in on a group of struggling garage-band members practicing in, well, a garage. He uses the product to teach them how to play, then extends the lesson to include Chuck Berry-esque moves.

The company will also sponsor an Oct. 8 concert by Bell at Toys R Us in Times Square, and there will be viral campaigns on Bell's Web site. Behind-the-scenes footage about the making of the commercial will be available on Mattel's new product Web site icanplayguitar.net and Bell's own site. Mattel's site has demos of the guitar and info on software titles.

David Allmark, general manager at Mattel for the "I Can Play" line, says the target is 6-year-olds and up--"With a core of between 7 and 9 for the product itself, and it really is ageless as you go up because it s so easy and fun to use so it could above that as well," he says.

Mattel introduced "I Can Play Piano" last year. However, Allmark says the new guitar version will have a much broader appeal, a prediction that's hard to refute if one tries to imagine the average kid playing air piano.

"Guitar is by far the most requested item in terms of kids' instruments. This is a broad audience product because learning to play the guitar is such an aspirational thing to do. 'I Can Play Piano' is frankly a more mother-directed product."

He says the new product benefits from having no direct competitor and because it serves as a bridge product. "We believe we have a niche in this product, between the first basic guitar that is 'push and play,' and then obviously 'Guitar Hero,' a teenage-targeted product."

The "I Can Play Guitar" package, which includes the axe, TV cords, a guitar strap, one complete song and game cartridge, and stickers, will retail for around $100, per the company. The software library, which retails for $15 each, will comprise six titles based on age, starting with Barbie Guitar Party, Hot Wheels Road Tunes and SpongeBob's Surf's Up for six-year-olds.