KBkids.com Launches $43 Million Campaign

Online toy store start-up KBkids.com launched a $43 million advertising campaign that includes national television, print, out-of-home and in-store promotions.

KBkids.com is a joint venture between Consolidated Stores Corp., operator of the 1,300-store bricks and mortar K*B Toys chain, and BrainPlay.com.

The initial television campaign consists of several spots that include five-second vendor tags that integrate the spirit of the ads with the brand of the vendor.

TV ads highlighting exclusive toys offered only by K*B will break in November. The print campaign includes inserts that will run in the November issues of Parenting and Family PC magazines.

Single pages, spreads, and three-page units will also run in family-focused publications such as Working Mother, Good Housekeeping, Disney Magazine, Family Fun, and Sesame Street. Separate ads featuring collectibles and video games will run in a number of specialty collector and gamer books.

The out-of-home campaign will focus on nine markets, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, Dallas, and Washington, DC, and will consist of bulletins, king-size bus panels, and mobile billboards.

The ads were created by Goldberg Moser O’Neill.

The campaign also includes sponsorship of the PBS program “Teletubbies” and NBC’s “KBkids.com StarSkates,” a figure-skating series airing this fall that merges top figure skaters with some of today’s hottest musicians.