"Smash! Crash!"

After spending 6 months on the NYT Bestseller's List, this perfect boy property by Jon Szieszka is getting its own web world. You can imagine the audio.

Food marketers, alert: This property could get kids eating carrots, apples, pears, peanuts: Anything that goes "crunch."

And I predict "Wrecker Rosie" with her pink wrecking ball will be a breakout character. If I made Bubble Gum, I'd put together a deal with them "Smash! Crash!" before sundown.

Wonk'd Out Room

Wonka promotions contain real kid trends and insights. Today, I noticed that they're offering "Build a Factory Room" online to win a cool room. Why it's on-trend: kids are taking control of their room decor--and kids relish designing environments on-line, too. This lets them do both. http://www.wonka.com/wonkafactory/shome.htm?section=rooms

Wonka's first insightful promo was "Wonkaaaah" The insight: for kids roller coasters provided a rite of passage--they tied the scream to the brand with boxes that screamed "Wonkaaah" to show you'd won. (Full disclosure, my previous team created that one).

Prediction: Next prize trend will be chances to glamorize rooms in kids' virtual worlds.

Many moneys

Kids (who don't have credit cards or checkbooks) have many creative ways to buy things in virtual worlds. Gaia offers Gold, Whyville offers Clams, NeoPets offers NeoPoints which kids (who don't have real world salaries) love earning and spending. In my favorite panel at Digital Hollywood this week, on microtransactions, the question was raised, "Will there be too many currencies? Will it become confusing?"

I'd say "no." People are used to multiple currencies. Think of Green Stamps, Box Tops for Education, Poker Chips, Frequent Flier miles, Frito-Lay Ploids...when it comes to money, for kids or adults, the more the merrier.