Chapter 283: Another Stuffed Contender

The spread of Hobbes ensued and on a certain September Saturday, Alexander had no school responsibilities and he was back to CREED HQ to oversee some stuff.

HQ is generally self-functioning but it is still a relatively delicate business environment to keep an eye on.

With Old Sullivan overseeing Top Gun matters, the little boss has to step in to keep watch on it.

Of course, Stuffed Hobbes was his prime focus due to some recent developments coming to light.

"How is our stuffed toy's noticeability?" Alexander asked.

"It is still strong, little boss. Word of mouth from our usual fans and then comic book-specialized publications have given their coverage to our new release." Mr. Advertiser had pretty much mentioned the Creed method of doing publicity. "These are all specific to the comic book industry and the newspaper industry has a different thought to it."

"What's that?"

"We haven't really planned to use their methods to put focus on our toy, so it hasn't been covered much... but it’s still good." Mr. Advertiser added. "The newspaper publications that we worked with via 'Calvin and Hobbes' has made some initiative, however, they are kind of put off by the fact that your comic strips are covering a lot of stuffed-version of Hobbes these days, little boss. They're hoping for you to tone it down a bit."

"Okay." Alexander may have really gone overkill with stuffed toy jokes and had really broken some 'Calvin and Hobbes' ethos. It can still be fixed though. "I'll just have our newspaper correspondence shift the stockpiled strips from the Hobbes plush focus to the regular ones."

"Not to worry about publishing the regular funny strips, little boss. Even without a stuffed toy focus... your daily syndication is considered as advertisement enough for Hobbes already." Mr. Advertiser appeased.

"That's good to hear but how about Hobbes' market performance? Is there anything for us to be concerned about?"

"People's attention to the toy is better than ever and it is reflected in the sales trend itself." Miss Marker took over this round as she handed in her usual compiled charts. "If our estimates are correct, our retailers will blow through our prepared inventory. My team has already handed out our suggested numbers for the units to be produced the second time around. We are just waiting for Mr. Creed and your approval, little boss."

"I'll have to call grandpa about the decision but do inform our manufacturing partners to make prepare some stock already." Alexander could tell that things were going well and matching the increased demand is a must.

"Our quality correspondents should be making sure of that as we speak, little boss." Miss Marker assured but she had something else to bring up. "There's actually something else that we should look out for."

"What's that? Are our competitors making their move as well?" He can't be blamed if he turns to them at a trouble's notice.

He was also quite curious about what the so-called Anti-Creed was going to do now. "Is Disney opening up the Tigger thing again? Or are the other comic book-toy company team-ups releasing a lot of fluffed-up superheroes?"

If they are trying to bump out Hobbes, then they should take their time. Stuffed heroes have merit but good luck in making them not look weird and flimsy.

"It's actually none of the usual, little boss." Miss Marker revealed. "I was looking for potential overlaps and a company called Worlds of Wonder is actually releasing somewhat of a peculiar toy this month as well."

Mr. Advertiser took note of this too. He butted in and cautioned. "Little boss, Hobbes may have made quite a splash in Comic-Con but this new toy that Miss Marker is talking about has taken the spotlight in a true toy convention. Its overlap to Hobbes isn't actually that much but it isn't to be dismissed in any way."

"What do you mean by not much overlap?" Miss Marker questioned and reminded. "It looks so much like a teddy bear and even has 'teddy' in its name. How could it not overlap with Hobbes who is in the stuffed toys category?"

"It's a freaking animatronic with a revolutionary design!" Mr. Advertiser pointed out. "Just because it looks like a teddy bear, doesn't necessarily mean that it is a stuffed toy!"

"Pish-posh. The general audience doesn't care about specific. They visually associate and a stuffed toy like Hobbes would still be affected." Miss Marker pointed out as well. "You may be right that it isn't a stuffed toy but you can't deny that it would most likely affect the sales of other toys."

"You...!"

"You, what?!"

These rivals should just date already.

Before their bickering back and forth could go on though, Alexander didn't want to listen to the escalation of it. "So, the both of you think that this toy has overlap and not much overlap to Hobbes. If you think about it, wouldn't it just be overlapping nonetheless?"

Mr. Advertiser and Miss Marker felt awkward at that. Acting like bitter children in front of their little boss is not the way to go.

Behaving like children in front of a boss is one thing... but behaving immaturely in front of someone like their incredibly mature little boss was something else.

They exchanged awkward glances with each other but that only turned to glares when they staringly blamed the other party for their embarrassment.

Alexander just sighed at their continued antics and went on. "Not the usual competition but some company called Worlds of Wonder. This company has a toy to look out for and something that's not to be underestimated."

"Going by the descriptions you've given, it's a toy that looks like a teddy bear, has 'teddy' in its name, but it's actually not a stuffed toy but a revolutionary animatronic."

"That's helpful and but not really." Alexander said with disinterest. He more or less knew about what this toy really is... and just wanted his derailing employees to fess up. "You guys obviously have a lot to say about it, so can't you just outright tell me what it is?"

"Erm... of course, little boss." Mr. Adviser clammed up. Given the previous scenario, it was kind of hard to explain things.

Unlike the still awkward and emotionally distressed Alan, Miss Marker just rationally moved on just like how she knows how their little boss had pitiful care for their embarrassing squabbles.

Miss Marker scoffed at her rival's poor showing and just handed a folder that she had compiled beforehand. "This should cover everything I could get from this releasing toy, little boss."

Alexander read the title of the compilation and sure enough, it was that. "Teddy Ruxpin."

He offhandedly flipped through some interesting points that Miss Marker had gotten... but it was a somewhat detailed coverage of what he mostly knows of the toy.

Oh Teddy Ruxpin, you're finally here and just in time. This was pretty much his internal comment as he got to the last page of the compilation.

"What do you think, little boss?" Mr. Advertiser finally got some hold of himself. "Should we do something about it?"

"Don't you know anything by now?" His rival had to remind him. "The bosses dislike meddling too much in the affairs of other businesses. However, we can still prepare in case Worlds of Wonder do take a shot at us."

"It highly unlikely that that would happen." Alexander read that Worlds of Wonder had pretty much just started. "Their focus is just putting their product out instead of undermining others like "some companies" that we know of."

"What should we do then?" Mr. Advertiser asked.

"We'll just go as usual and they'll go on as usual. We are just a couple of toy companies releasing new “stuffed” products in the same month." If a business worries every time another competing business acts, then it would go nowhere.

Of course, this Teddy Ruxpin toy is quite noteworthy to bring up but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

In fact, Alexander had a pretty interesting strategy to try out with this one. Instead of having Miss Marker and Mr. Advertiser bickering through their unresolved rivalry, it was going to be a market intersection between the two toys.

Stuffed September wasn't just driven by a singular focus on a stuffed toy like Hobbes after all. Alexander included Teddy Ruxpin as part of the equation as well.

It’s another stuffed contender for the month of September and this new contender happens to be widely lauded as the best-selling toy of past timeline's 1985 and 1986. Things can’t get any more interesting than that.