IRWIN SELLING FOR YES!
By Adnews Staff
Irwin Toy has a bag full of new products to sell. The Toronto company has taken over the Canadian distribution of goods from U.S.-based YES! Entertainment Corporation. YES! makes and markets toys and other entertainment products, some of them educational and interactive. The previous Canadian distributor was Main Event of Toronto. The deal means Irwin's inventory will be bulked up by a group of products that include Yack Back, an eight-second recording device that lets kids hear themselves talk funny, and another audio gizmo, the Comes To Life Storybook. Irwin Toy president George Irwin told Adnews this week that his company and YES! are jointly launching a "personal communications device" for kids at the a toy fair in New York in the spring, with plans to start selling it in September. He said he could not reveal more about the toy except that it is "a really fabulous product that they can use to communicate with each other." Irwin plans to support the YES! products with "significant advertising, point of purchase programs and other promotional activities." Irwin uses mainly television for its advertising, with some magazine ads. The toy maker handles all its advertising in-house.