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Crayola Moves Beyond Crayons, Into Digital

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Crayola, a privately held division of Hallmark, has been redefining itself since 2004. Speaking about the evolution of the brand at the 2010 ANA Creativity Conference in New York, Sharon Hartley, EVP, marketing and sales for North America at Crayola, said the company had to broaden how it defined itself in order to survive and grow.

"We had incredibly flat business before 2005, basically thinking of ourselves as a 'stick' and paper business," she said, "But how many ways can you reinvent the crayon?" She said the senior team was prescient enough to think about the company as a maker of "creative experience," not just a stationery or art supplier.

"It wasn't easy," she said. "We brought in external help -- consultants who helped us look outward at the consumer, not inwardly at the company and [see] what we were doing wrong. Organizationally, making that change was painful. Some couldn't make the change and others grasped it and ran with it."

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The new "smile" icon was the surface expression of the evolution, introduced six years ago when the company also changed its name to Crayola LLC from Vinny and Smith. Hartley said Crayola won't go into, for example, building toys like Lego or 3D experiences. "If it's not colorful, it's not Crayola; if it's not self expression, it's not Crayola. We are about growing frequency of self-expression."

The company is experimenting with social media, according to Hartley, who said that since moms are the brand's core purchasers, although obviously not its end-user, much of those efforts are directed at them. "Moms have busy lives so we want to capture them with mobile ads, or through their social networks -- through, for instance, mommy bloggers. But, honestly, it's an experiment for us right now."

Another digital direction that Crayola is taking is virtual branded experiences like "Lights, Camera, Color," a digital art and photo platform, and "Story Studio" -- which lets kids put their image in a virtual world and build stories around it. She says the company is also developing apps for tablets like iPad. "Makes lots of sense -- and that's the path we are pursuing."

One challenge has been keeping employees and agencies immersed in the new product lines that are a far cry from boxes of crayons. Hartley said the company does regular immersive experiences for both camps. "We do this both with our primary creative shop, McGarryBowen, and other agency partners."

Hartley said one measure of the company's success is how well it sells throughout the year, since the core, traditional crayon business is strongest at the start of the school year. "Our biggest season is back-to-school, which is not unexpected. However, our dramatic growth has been in the holiday season. We are a very viable choice for safe, fun, expressable play. For us, it is important to figure out how to drive consumption in the first half of the year."

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