Monthly Archives: March 2017

Bobbleheads can make you money? How to use bobbleheads for your business

Bobblehead dolls are so silly and amusing that you would not think of them as a part of a money making strategy. But their lovable traits and popularity make them excellent promotional items for businesses. Actually, their whole history was influenced by the decision to use bobble heads as part of promotions or celebrations.

Nowadays, these funny dolls are at a peak of popularity and variety. A lot of brands have launched their own bobbleheads to promote themselves and industries such as the cinema, TV or sports world have created a whole niche for these charming nodders. It’s nearly impossible to find a comic book store, library or toy store that does not sell bobbleheads of the most beloved characters and celebrities.

With the advances in technology and the possibility of creating highly customizable dolls, a lot of companies were born to fill this niche. Today you can find a huge number of custom bobbleheads sellers and manufacturers. Besides making a great gift for a friend or family member, this little doll can bring you some profit too if you own a business. Let’s see exactly how.

How to create your custom business bobble head

Owning a business means carefully building a brand and getting your customers to form an emotional connection with it. The basic elements of your brand are the name, logo, slogan, even the color scheme, and the tone used. It can go further than that and be present in a more detailed manner, like the way you reward loyal customers, the way you greet your customers, how often you change your product, how fast or how slow you produce your good etc.

If you are a business owner you must already know what image you want to project to your target audience. If you already have a mascot as a part of your brand, it’s simple, just use it as a model for the bobblehead dolls. This was done by McDonald’s, Fanta, Roche, KFC, Taco Bell and many, many others have used this method of promotion.

If you don’t have a mascot, create one or picture the perfect employee of your business. Use a bobblehead that smiles, wears a uniform and your brand name, and is ready to assist your customers. If you already have a popular campaign and you are using a punchline or a joke that is already known by your customers, incorporate it in the design, you can even record it as a message. A smart way of really using the promoting capital of these dolls is including your website address on each doll.

 

Choose a company that will produce your bobbleheads and start customizing

After having an idea of what your bobblehead will represent and look like, start searching for a company that will deliver exactly what you need. There are many options on the market and usually, the production methods are the same, but you can orientate price-wise or check the quality and reviews before starting.

When you contact a bobblehead company, provide them with details about how your doll will look like, what is the degree of customization, how many pieces do you need and how fast you want them to be delivered. This information will affect the total cost and you need to find a good price-quality ratio. If all your dolls will look the same, you will benefit from discounts, as molds will be used. Companies also offer discounts for larger quantities of ordered items. Let them know early on that you need duplicates, as the original molds need to be kept.

In terms of customization, you can closely check with the artists and provide feedback through each step of the production. To ensure that the end product will fit your needs, almost all companies involve you in the creation process and you will have to approve several steps before the series is produced.

A good idea in this stage of your campaign is to ask for feedback from your employees, partners or even family and friends. Get a taste of how people will react to your dolls and consider changing the bobblehead to be more likable if needed.

You can definitely trust us with the mission of creating a bobblehead doll for your business. We have been around and leading the industry of bobblehead dolls since 2008.  Feel free to contact us anytime for more details about the quality and prices.

You have your own business bobblehead, duplicated. What now?

Even if these toys are instantly liked and most often receive good reactions, you need to think of a way of maximizing the profit they can bring. The main purpose of these items if to increase awareness for your brand, make it likable and help you bond with your existing clients.

Announce the launch of the bobblehead through all your marketing media, organize giveaways or promote them directly in your store. Show the satisfied customers with their own bobble heads and get coverage in the media. You will soon pat yourself on the back for the great idea of getting your own bobblehead.

 

 

Custom Bobblehead Wedding Cake Toppers Are the Icing on the Cake!

For the fun, happy couples, bobblehead wedding cake toppers can be the perfect match on their big day. Elegant or funny, these customized dolls can be a brilliant way to remember your special day for years to come.

Bobbleheads have regained their popularity in the last two decades, evolving from artisanal clay figurines to high-quality, durable products you can customize to your liking. The oversized bobbling heads are something you can never get bored of, and the high number of dolls you can spot in homes or car windows are living proof of that.

The history of wedding cake toppers

First of all, let’s learn a bit about how these cake toppers came to be a usual sight at weddings all around the world.

While the history and tradition of having a wedding cake go back to the ancient times, the bride and groom cake toppers are much more recent. The wedding cake often represents the unity and joint love of the two newlyweds. The traditions surrounding the wedding cake are often rituals of luck and commitment, the cake being used as a symbol of fertility and luck.

An anecdote about the birth of the wedding topper tells the tale of baker’s daughter that was getting married. She asked her father to come up with a way to honor her sacred union and to include it in the cake’s design. After many deliberations and ideas, her father decided to model two little figurines representing the bride and her groom and to place these dolls on the top of the wedding cake. His daughter was so impressed and moved by his gift and the perfect way it represented the pair’s love for each other.

The wedding cake topper as we know it today was increasingly popular in the USA in the 1950s, when they often represented the bride in her white dress and the groom wearing a military uniform. The figurines represented the commitment the pair would make, especially through hard times, when the men were on the battlefield and their wives waited for them back home.

Why choose bobble heads as wedding cake toppers?

Traditionally, the wedding cake toppers are classic figurines representing the bride and groom. Originally, they would be modeled from wax, sugar icing, wood or porcelain and were more symbolic than perfect resemblances of the persons getting married. Bells or flowers were also used often to represent the pair.

More recently, as weddings started to have more untraditional themes, the wedding toppers were also adapted to the modern bride and groom. A much wider range of toppers can be found today and they often match a general theme based on the pair’s passions, common memories, and personalities.

Bobblehead toppers may seem fit only to fun-loving pairs, but they are so versatile that you can create a perfectly elegant and sober decoration for your wedding cake. The possibility of customizing them to the smallest detail makes them so perfect to celebrate this special day. The two figurines will resemble the bride and groom perfectly and can also be fitted with props and different clothing.

Ideas to personalize your wedding cake toppers

The most common bobble head cake toppers stick to the traditional bride and groom in their attire, but the possibilities do not end here. You can start by deciding if you want a funny topper, a classic one or even a mini topper for smaller cakes.

Everything can be personalized, from the dress and suit to the base of the topper. You can place the pair on a sandy beach, a grass meadow or even in an urban setting. You can also incorporate vehicles, props and you can even have your pet joining the topper. Palm trees, neon signs, and even Christmas trees can be part of the picture.

The two figurines can stand next to each other or even dance, carry one another or ride in a convertible Beetle. Add hats, glasses, jewelry, and custom shoes and clothes for an accurate depiction of the two lovers. And who says you need to include only two people? You can fit your whole family on your wedding cake!

Forget about freezing the top tier of your wedding cake for your first anniversary and display your wedding topper in your home instead. You can keep this delightful wedding cake topper for years to come and it will definitely be a great conversation starter when you have guests. It’s even better if you got the figurines as a gift from your family and friends because it shows how well they know you and how they wanted to immortalize your special day.

Choosing bobblehead toppers for your 50th anniversary would be a wonderful proof of how beautifully you grew old together.

 

 

The History of the Bobble Head Dolls

The bobble head doll is one of the most recognizable and likable collectible toys because its charm lies in its simplicity. Even the name is as straight-forward as you can get, defining the whole essence of this beloved figurine, also named nodder or wobbler.

Bobble heads have a string or a hook connecting the head to the body, causing the head to bobble when lightly touched. Did we mention that the head is also oversized? A lot of people love these silly figurines and their popularity expanded quickly in the last decade with the customizable products taking over.

This lovely collectible has an equally playful history and it’s interesting to see how popular culture came to embrace them.

The original bobble head dolls

The concept of a doll with moving parts goes back in Antiquity. Chinese and Japanese string dolls were manufactured long before the modern bobble head and they had nodding heads, imitating the real-life courtesy nod. These dolls were carefully crafted out of porcelain or wood and were highly prized by European aristocrats. India also had similar figurines, the dancing Thanjavur dolls, traditionally made from paper mache or terracotta.

During the 18th century, a more modern version of bobble head figurines was made in Germany, usually representing animals, human and folklore creatures. These dolls were called “nodders” and they seem to have been well-known over the continent. The earliest reference to these dolls can be found in Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Overcoat”, which describes its main character as having a neck “like the necks of plaster cats which wag their heads”.

Association of bobble heads with sports

Various sources date the first sports-related bobbleheads to the 1920s when the New York Knicks baseball team supposedly released them. This theory is not supported by evidence, as the team was formed in 1946.

The next mentions of baseball player figurines refer to the first mass-produced bobble head for the Major League Baseball World Series in the ‘60s. The figurines were imported from Japan and were made of paper mache, a frail material that does not keep well over time. Although the dolls represented specific baseball players and had different team uniforms, the faces were the same for all.

Customizing became more detailed when the manufacturers started using ceramics instead of paper mache. Over the next decades, the production of bobble heads extended from sports events to more niches, like cartoon characters or famous musicians. Some of the most valued antique bobble heads represent The Beatles and were used in their album promotions.

End of century hiatus

In the early ‘70s, the bobble heads lost their popularity among collectors and were replaced by other things, like lunch boxes, video games, and action figures. By the time they made a comeback, technology advanced and allowed the bobbleheads to be reinvented into what we know today – lightweight, resistant items with a high possibility of customization.

The comeback

In 1999, baseball reintroduced bobblehead giveaways for the San Francisco Giants game on May 9th, where 35,000 dolls of Willie Mays were offered to the fans and brought the bobble head back into the spotlight.

The trend quickly spread its wings with other teams launching custom bobble heads, and so the new craze began. The nodding figurines were shortly used by many more companies as promotional items and their value began to lower because of the over saturation of the market. McDonald’s had a Ronald McDonald bobble head, and even The Osbournes launched Ozzy dolls as promotional items.

The modern bobble head doll is most commonly made of plastic, resin or polymer clay. The manufacturing process often uses molds and allows a certain model to be mass-produced. New dolls are also highly customizable with different bodies, accessories and facial features. This led to the birth of a new niche in the market, bobble dolls as gift items or anniversary items.

The present day variety of bobble head dolls

Bobble head animals continue to be one of the most popular varieties, as they are commonly placed on the car’s dashboard and allow people to express their love for their favorite pets. Bobble head dogs are a pop culture staple, often being spotted in personal cars.

Character-inspired figurines also took over the world of cinema, TV, and gaming. Today, every comic book store holds bobble head figurines representing beloved characters. One of the secondary trends is that of the mini-sized bobble head, often having a largely disproportionate head and cute, cartoonish features.

That doesn’t mean that the manufacturing of these dolls has shifted entirely to plastics and moldable materials. There are still artists that create hand-made bobble head reproductions with a high level of fidelity. Giving someone a bobble head with their appearance is a popular thing and many companies offer a wide range of options to their clients. We are such a company, if you have any questions or requests regarding bobbleheads, don’t hesitate to get in touch!