"And the winner is…"
At PLAYTHINGS, excellence is its own award
Maria Weiskott, Editor-in-Chief -- Playthings, 8/1/2001
Everyone's getting into the act. Have you noticed the plethora of awards that have been cropping up lately? Not a week goes by, it seems, that an award isn't being given out somewhere to someone for something. MTV, Blockbuster, TV Guide and the Screen Actors Guild, for instance, have made fairly recent forays into the awards arena—to name just a few. Not that we have anything against giving out awards, but unlike the new crop, the PLAYTHINGS awards are not of the "de jour" variety. We've been honoring outstanding merchandising achievement for more than three decades and, during International Toy Fair 2002, will hold our 32nd annual awards ceremony.
Our awards were not initiated by a celebrated reporter like Joseph Pulitzer (the Pulitzer Prize, 1917) or reported celebrity like Dick Clark (the American Music Awards, 1973). Neither do they have a history as long as the Oscars (1928), the Tonys (1947) or the Emmys (1948). But they are the oldest awards that honor retailers in the toy industry.
In this month's issue (please see pages 37 and 38 for details) we actively launch our search for outstanding merchandising achievement among retailers and invite all our readers to be recognized. Information is also available at playthings.com.
Also this month, readers will notice some significant changes to PLAYTHINGS including a bit of competition for attention on this very page! (There's nothing like going to the ultimate sources for toy retailing advice.)
The front pages of the magazine—appropriately renamed "Up Front"—have been redesigned to feature original information researched and interpreted especially for toy industry professionals. Information, or 'news,' of a more timely nature is posted daily on playthings.com.
You'll also notice that the Up Front and department pages are presented in a more modern, easy-to-read format, and that all members of the PLAYTHINGS organization are listed in a masthead among those Up Front pages. And with this issue, we add another new product page: SKU'd View.
What hasn't changed, of course, is the invaluable information contained between the covers: the merchandise and trend stories found on each page. During the past few months, we've even expanded that information with a product portfolio that introduces each issue's cover feature.
That's one thing that will never change about PLAYTHINGS excellence, whether in our magazine or in giving toy retailers the opportunity to be recognized for it as well.
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