THE CHALLENGE

What makes a toy company like Jakk's Pacific venture into the world of stationery? How about a trend that's destined to become as popular as the yo-yo? Anyone who's seen Youtube videos of pen spinning competitions knows that it's anything but dull. While the concept of pen spinning as a popular activity originated in Asia, Jakk's Pacific challenged us to create campaign that would bring the challenge and excitement of pen spinning to North American youth.

THE STRATEGY

Jakk's Pacific developed a brand new product--a line of precision-balanced, specially customizable pens tailored for spinning. In order to announce SpinZ Pens to a new market, we would create not only an interactive web page featuring product overviews and spinning tutorials, but also a television spot to lead the campaign.

CREATIVE AND EXECUTION

The site is targeted to boys between the ages of nine and thirteen. When the site opens, high energy music hits the ears--this clearly isn't your father's stationery. The website introduces the user to the three available models, the beginner's 'Zero'', the intermediate 'Ronin', and the advanced 'Axis'. Each pen is fully customizable, and as such, our site allows prospective buyers to digitally trick out each model of pen on the site. By adding weights, colors, special skins and accessories, each pen can be made to be truly unique.

Also featured on the site are video tutorials, filmed at ninety frames per second using the state-of-the-art 'Red' digital camera. This allows users to slow the pen tutorials and study the subtle nuances of the tricks in order to perfect them.