Brand Profile: Personalize With Custom Made Products

This week for my Marketing class homework, I have decided to rave about Build A Bear's extremely personalized customer experience.

I definitely used to frequent Build a Bear when I was younger, and I can honestly say that I loved it. You walk into a store where you can select a cute teddy bear from a variety of styles, stuff it yourself, put your own personal wish inside of it, and choose its own clothing. How much more personalized can you get? Build a Bear is great because they combine the fun individualized factor of creating your own "one of a kind" bear with the personal, emotional side of giving the bear a wish and helping stuff it yourself. The process is fun, highly interactive, and hands on. Also, you can even have your birthday party right there in the store. The company delivers right to the customer's wants.

The brand builds relationships with their customers by branching out to different channels and outlets to reach their consumers. For instance, last year, Build A Bear had a line of collectible bear toys for McDonald's, and the Happy Meal toys look almost exactly like the Beanie Babies of my childhood! In addition, they now have party decorations with the signature bear face logo on plates and napkins, perfectly suited for a birthday party.

In addition, they have an entire online community where you can log in your bear with its own identification and play games with it in its virtual world. This tactic helps Build a Bear stay in competition with its competitors and extends the personalized entertainment for the consumer.

Also, they create special, locational costumes for your Bears. For instance, in the Downtown Disney shopping district just outside of Disneyland in Anaheim, you can dress your bear up in a princess gown of your choice. But, you can't find those gowns in the store at San Jose! This brings a hidden exclusivity to the brand.

 Even celeb kids such as Suri love the bears!

- The Ram