Hello! And welcome to our Communication Plan for our role in the 2015 American International Toy Fair in New York City! We are so honored to participate in such a groundbreaking event! Inside, employees will be briefed on pre-event, event, and post-event procedures.

This includes our new products for rollout, target audiences, and show involvement goals. We hope this plans enables participating employees to fully understand our communicative aims in all aspects of the event, empowering them to share our excitement for the upcoming event!Thank you so much for your full attention, time, and commitment at all steps of preparation for the event! Our involvement without your help would be impossible!

Best wishes!

Sincerely,

Andrea T. LeirasPR Director of Tacky Wacky Toys, INC

Tacky Wacky Toys at the Fair:2015.

I. ProductsThe following three Tacky Wacky Toys INC. ™ Products will be unveiled at the event, from February 14th-17th:

The Xylaladder (expected release: Spring 2015) The SmellPod (expected release: Fall 2015) The Head-Mounted Drum (expected release: Winter 2015)

These products are apart of our new “Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line, designed to stimulate the minds of young Bachs and Bethovens, by integrating traditional music theory, into user-friendly, modern products. These products will be represented by their first fully functioning prototypes at the event, made available to the public in the specified time frames above. Our goal in rolling out these new products is to create excitement among consumers for our new line, as well as creating publicity with top toy photojournalists present at the event. Both of these aims will boost sales, and highlight Tacky Wacky Toys’ solid commitment to create toys with the intent of supporting the scientific and creative innovators of the future.

IA. The Xylaladder™• Product Summary: Have you ever

wanted to liven up chores around the house with live music? Or wanted to learn to play an instrument, while teaching yourself? Now you can, with our new Xylaladder! This ladder, programmed and designed to function dually as a xylophone and ladder, will liven up any chore day, or create a Mozart out of even the most tone deaf individual! Practice your scales, or learn to play popular folk songs, with the accompanying “Step-By-Step Song Book”, taking your Xylaladder to the next level

• This product is for anyone who loves music, enjoys synchronized learning, and prefers creative methods of problem solving, in all aspects.

• You will LOVE this product for its low-assembly, easy to use volume and programming features, and its ability to liven up any task, or musician enthusiast’s life. You will be making music with all of your body, whenever you want!

IB. The SmellPod™• Users will LOVE this product for its

personalized, smart scent organization technology, its ease of use when connected to any Smartphone, and the ability to relive or enhance any memory at the push of a button. Users will also love this product’s humorous ability to cast scents upon any unsuspecting individual, without their permission; resulting in many inside jokes and fond nicknames.

Product Summary: As humans, our capacity to recognize different scents, is estimated at 5,000. While this is a great accomplishment, we feel we should be able to do more! Enter, the SmellPod™, a cell-phone like device that enables its user(s) to recognize any possible scent, at any given time. The Pod works by surveying the user(s)’s smell preferences, remembering them and classifying them into specified lists, ready for use, upon activation. In addition, the user(s) can program certain scents to activate when they around certain individuals, emphasizing a stronger bond!

This product is for the perfume/cologne aficionado, the overly organized individual who organizes EVERYTHING, and the stressed individual in need of scent repression therapy.

IC. The Head-Mounted Drum™• Product Summary: Want to foster

musical genius in your children as early as infancy? Then the Head-Mounted Drum is for you! With adjustable forehead straps to ensure a stable head mounting, this drum is portable, potently loud, and effective at teaching any user the basic dynamics of rhythm, volume control, and dissonance, vital to music composition. The drum also comes with spare sticks, in case of rapid infant hand growth.

• This product is for all parents who want to inspire musical greatness in their children, any devourers of classic music, and, young children with a fascination in creating percussion of all types.

• Users will LOVE this product for its portability and ability to bring music making anywhere, its virtually set-up free usage, protective safety via adjustable forehead straps and extra drumsticks, and its ability to integrate musical genius in all users, in every aspect of their lives.

II. CompetitorsThe following section outlines key competitors of Tacky Wacky Toys’ ™, in direct relation to the “Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line. These line-specified competitors are:

a) The Little Eienstein Co. ™b) Playhouse Disney Toy Design Studio ™c) LeapFrog Learning Lines™

These fellow educational toy companies were identified as key competitors to our new line, because of their interactive imposition of music in the playful process of learning, their innovative designs in achieving an involved education of musical theory, and their high success rate among parent groups, purchasing musically educational products.

These competitors were identified as industry leaders in musically educational toys, by Tacky Wacky Toys’ Field Experts, who analyzed thousands of product reviews, toy recall rates, and overall sales trends from 2013-14, to arrive at these conclusions. Therefore, we pledge to surpass our competitors’ products in the following areas: • Safety • Attainment of Musical

Skills/Education• Entertainment Value• Low recall rates• Overall product satisfactionAnd we will do so to fulfill our promise of creating tomorrow’s minds, as the “Edison of toys” ™.

IIA. The Little Eienstein Co. ™• Company Background: The Little Eienstein

Co. ™ , specializes in interactive DVD programs for young children, educating them in key musicians, and basic music creation and theory.

• Competitor Strengths: This company, created by Disney’s former Preschool Play Initiative President, is noted for not having any product recalls, being the official DVD series of the Bill Nye Foundation ™, and a reputation for high educational achievement/development, featured in Parents ™ Magazine. This study analyzed the usage of The Little Eienstein series in infants who used it daily, and infants who did not, finding that infants using it, were further along in primary education, than their non-using counterparts. This aids in the product’s overall reputation, sales, and marketing, explaining its high success, and product satisfaction.

• The Little Eienstein Co. ™, is limited by the fact that it only produces one product vehicle, being DVDs, on various subtopics of the overall musical education topic. This results in overly repetitive stories, lack of creative musical development in users, and an overall low entertainment value, in comparison to other market products.

• Average product rating on amazon.com:

• Our Benefit Over Competitor: Our products in the “Educational Soundwave” ™, are more multi-dimensional and involved than a simple DVD, resulting in an overall more entertaining, educational experience than with the Little Eienstein Co.’s products. This is due to the hands-on element our products feature, that theirs do not. The best way to gain knowledge of music, is to make it, rather than watching it.

IIB Playhouse Disney Design Studio™

• Company Background: The Playhouse Disney Design Studio™ specializes in bringing to life the Playhouse Disney characters from children’s favorite shows, and integrating them into educational toys via art, music, problem solving, and trivia.

• Competitor Strengths: This company, founded by Walt Disney INC., is noted for its highly interactive products, where children are able to connect virtually and physically with their favorite Disney characters, who teach them various lessons about art, music, and more! In addition, this company’s products have not had any safety recalls within the last few years, and are endorsed by several Disney celebrity babies, such as Luca Duff. Overall, the products benefit greatly from having the instant Disney seal of approval, and for surpassing their competitors for innovative uses of technology and software in their products.

• Weaknesses: The Playhouse Disney Design Studio™, is limited by the fact that the appropriate play age for most of their products, is 8 and up. This is a problem because infants, toddlers, and younger children are exempt from interactive, educational toys, and therefore being limited in their artful education acquisition.

• Average product rating on amazon.com:

• Our Benefit Over Competitor: Our products in the “Educational Soundwave” ™, are more age inclusive, with products for children aged: 0-1 year, 2-4 years, 5-7 years, and 8 and up. This means children of all ages can learn to love music through play, with various types of product. In addition, our products do not depend upon fancy software or expensive technology, making them more accessible, more hands on, and requiring of more imagination, that our competitor.

IIC Leapfrog Learning Lines™

• Company Background: The Leapfrog Learning Lines™, specializes in producing interactive, voice-responsive “learning pads” for children. These pads work with interactive books with various characters, and subjects (academic and leisure), and guide children through these subjects, with guided problems and stories.

• Competitor Strengths: This company created by the Gerber Foundation, is noted for having its debut product, the Leapfrog Leaderpad™, being named Toy of the Year by Time Magazine in 2005, and since then has been endorsed by the National Scientists Jr. Association, as the educational toy of the millennium. In addition, this company’s new products have consistently been apart of Ellen DeGeneres's and Oprah’s Christmas giveaway episodes, making them the must have item for the holiday season, multiple times. Finally, this product centered around interactive books, forces all parts of the user’s mind to be active, in order for deep play to occur.

• Weakness(es): The Leapfrog Learning Lines™ products are limited by the fact that they only create one product, in multiple versions. Being, an interactive laptop like device, for multiple age groups. This takes the excitement away from the brand, due to the fact the child using them will have nothing new to look forward to. Also, due to this product format, there is no ability for the child using it to develop a solid set of hands on building skills. In addition, the brand has experienced several product recalls, for faulty electrical wiring, making the final product unsafe, and apparently low quality.

• Average Product Rating on amazon.com:

• Our Benefit Over Competitor: Our products in the “Educational Soundwave” ™, are more varied in format and features, and as a result encourage more hands on learning, than the Pad series.

Target Audiences

In releasing our new, “Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line, we have many audiences we want to impact at this event, including:• Hard Media Sources: EX: Toys for Life

Magazine, TIME, Parents Magazine, The Educational Life Journal and US Kids.

• New Media Sources: EX: The Twitter and Facebook pages of online toy reviewers, the online pages of Toy Parent Support Groups, the Instagram and Vine accounts of potential buyers such as Target, Walmart, Toys r Us, and Walgreens, and several online market places like Amazon, Overstock.com, and EBay.

• Internal Publics: Our toy inventors and their families, our buying team and their families, and our management team and their families.

• External Publics: Parents, music school teachers (all grade levels), children, nonprofit organizations who donate to needy children and schools.

• Our goal in impacting these audiences is to tailor our commitment of musical educational excellence, to their varied, and multi-dimensional brains.

Strategic Goal

• Our strategic goal in attending this show, is to increase awareness about our “Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line, through live demonstrations, in-person sales, and media interest in our innovative products.

Objective Goal• Overall Desired Outcome: Our ODD, is to get a minimum of 300 pre-sales on our

“Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line.• Goal: Buyers

– To attract buyers to our new line, we must perform a minimum of 1000 demonstrations, to ensure that roughly 1 in 3 visitors to our booth becomes a customer.

– In addition, it is our goal to receive a minimum of 60 TWT Catalogue Subscriptions, by the end of the event.

• Goal: Media– To attract future buyers, it is our goal to be mentioned or featured in every one of the

previous target audience groups, with at least two features or mentions, from every group.

• Goal: Internal– To ensure our product sells, our demonstrating employees must be excited and

involved! Therefore, every demonstrator should aim to have a minimum of 50 demonstrations, ending in a purchase or reservation of one or more of our “Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line products.

Key Messages• Media: “Our new “Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line, was created with future Mozarts in

mind. With state-of-the-art, interactive products, this line is sure to amaze.” This message is to be accompanied with several captioned photos, explaining the product and its function, in addition to live demonstration photos. This is to capture the new “less text is more movement” of new media. The same will be done for hard media sources, with the exception of our company background info, and product origin idea/creation info, being included to provide the feel of a true news safety.

• Internal Publics: “Our new “Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line, was created at our flagship labs in St. Louis, based off of several employee-drafted suggestions, at our previous company-wide Skype session.” This message is to make it apparent that without our employees our new line would not be possible, implicitly encouraging them to contribute more often.

• External Publics: “Our new “Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line, was designed with safety in mind, as determined by several tests held by third-party toy safety leaders, who want our products to be as safe as they are fun. Our toys also encourage old-fashioned imagination, to keep your kids (students) active, and ready to learn.” This message is to make it apparent that not only are our products ensured to be of the highest safety, but also that they encourage the creative play necessary to be educational and healthy.

Story Opportunities• In order to achieve our competitive sales goals, it is vital that our product receives

heavy media exposure. The following story opportunities are a sample of the type of publicity we desire to attract: – A feature story in TIME, analyzing the benefits of TWT products in relation to our top competitors,

outlining explicitly our advantages over theirs. – An in-depth discussion on a TED Talk about our products, specifically one that identifies music

education as vital to healthy human development, accredited by a psychological scholar. – A brief recording of one of live-demonstrations being shown and then rated on a popular YouTube

channel.– A brief mention on a popular talk show’s Favorite Things show, such as The Ellen Show, The Steve

Harvey Show, or The Oprah Winfrey Show, to get people talking.– A dedicated article on Buzzfeed about our new line and its creative uses, to get TWT trending on all

media platforms.– A news story or mention on CNN’s Product to Watch Section, to generate attention on our company

all over the world.

Tactical PlanningIn order to achieve our goal of a minimum 300 pre-sales of our product, a minimum of 60 new TWT Catalogue subscriptions, and our high rate of media mentions, our plans must be impactful and purposeful. An outline of them for each audience, is outlined below.

– Hard/New Media Sources: A) A Scavenger Hunt Product Alert on the TWT Webpage, to identify, define, and depict our new products gradually, to keep the media on their toes. B) Interviews both in print and online/television/radio with our inventors, buyers, and management teams, to shed light on our creative process and heavy employee involvement with this line. C) A News conference (post-Toy show) to the public excited.

– Internal: A) A New “Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line Intranet system where demonstrators can log and share their success stories, to drive sales competition. B) Employee designed posters about our “Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line, with their own created pictures and drawings. C) Weekly Rally style meetings to share and analyze team efforts leading up to the event. In addition, food will be provided to those attending.

– External: A) A Virtual Scavenger Hunt on the TWT Webpage, where clues will be given a few times a week, to unveil an image of our new line products. B) A direct-mail pamphlet, with accompanying video footage of our new products, right before the show. C) Several social media posts with links, to the Scavenger Hunt and pre-Sale order page, to drive online sales.

Audience: External

• Buyer Objective Outcome: Is to generate a large number of pre-sales for our new line, and to increase our new customer loyalty numbers.

• Desired Outcome: Our goal is to secure a minimum of 300 product pre-sales to our buyers by doing , at least 1,000 demonstrations, and in addition securing a minimum of 60 new TWT Catalogue subscriptions.

Tactic Responsibility Budget

Virtual Scavenger Hunt on the TWT Webpage

Web Design Team/Marketing $5,000

Direct Mail Pamphlet with additional video footage

Graphic Design Team/Marketing/Customer Service

$7,700

Linked social media posts on our pages (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

PR Team $53,000

Audience: Media• Media Objective Outcome: Is to appeal to potential buyers of our new products,

through credible, heavily regarded traditional and new media platforms, creating an overall positive public front regarding TWT.

• Desired Outcome: Is to be featured in at least one source in each of these categories: magazines, industry/academic journals, newspapers, social media pages of powerhouse companies, and online marketplaces, and to have at least two mentions (feature or product review) in each of these groups.

Tactic Responsibility Budget

Product Definition Scavenger Hunt on the TWT webpage.

Web Design Team/Marketing $5,000

Interviews both in print and online/television/radio with our inventors, buyers, and management teams

PR Team $61,000

A News conference (post-Toy show

PR Team/Spokesperson $61,000

Audience: Internal• Internal Objective Outcome: Is to build excitement about our new line

among employees, and encourage competitive sales among them, to ensure our sales goals are met.

• Desired Outcome: Each demonstrating employee at the event, should have a minimum of 50 successful demonstrations, resulting in a pre-sale, reservation, or catalogue subscription.

Tactic Responsibility Budget

A New “Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line Intranet system where demonstrators can log and share their success stories, to drive sales competition

IT (Information Technology)

$6,000 (half of training proceeds)

Employee designed posters about our “Educational Soundwave” ™ Toy Line

Toy Inventors/Office Management Teams

N/A: Made as gratuitous propaganda by employees

Weekly Rally style meetings to share and analyze team efforts leading up to the event

Office Management Teams

$100 (out of training proceeds) for meeting snacks

Timeline: External

Tactic Week One Week Two Week Three Week FourVirtual SH… PR Team debates clue

ideas and draws up suggestions.

Graphic Design Team takes ideas and makes image drafts for clues. Begins creating SH branding.

PR Team and Graphic Designers meet to propose final ideas and give them to Web Design Team.

Web Design Team takes clue ideas, clue images, and SH branding, and makes them into a website feature.

Direct Mail Pamph. (w/ vid)

PR Team debates and decides video content, and products and key messages for pamphlet.

PR team gives these to Graphic Designers who edit until approved, and give feedback to PR Team.

Graphic Designers submit final pamphlet for printing to Kinko’s and PR Team films video accompaniment.

Pamphlets returned to Designers and distributed company wide. Video viewed during final rally meeting.

Social Media PR Team meets to brainstorm platforms and post content.

PR Team finalizes platforms and content and gives info to social media marketing rep.

Social media marketing rep creates posts on decided platforms with pre-selected publishing dates.

Posts are published on pre-determined dates and shared with public.

Tactic Week One Week Two Week Three Week FourMedia SH PR Team debates clue

ideas and draws up suggestions.

Graphic Design Team takes ideas and makes image drafts for clues. Begins creating SH branding

PR Team and Graphic Designers meet to propose final ideas and give them to Web Design Team.

Web Design Team takes clue ideas, clue images, and SH branding, and makes them into a website feature.

Interviews (all formats)

PR Team discusses all media outlet offers and selects the number and platform/source of desired outreach.

PR Team briefs and trains all TWT representatives and spokespeople involved in outreach campaign. Mention media do’s and don’ts, prepare spokespeople for trick questions, and remaining confident at all times.

Once briefed, media outreach reps will complete training testing and meet once more with PR trainers to demonstrate skills. Will do a mock press conference in front of whole staff, with an accompanying group media briefing.

Media reps will complete any and all pre-assigned interviews.

Post- show news conference

Sales data will be assessed determining an overall positive or negative outcome. PR Team and Media Reps will be briefed on evaluation results.

Media Reps will complete all training (as listed above), and proceed to final stages of training (also described above).

PR Team will work with spokesperson to draft and finalize an opening statement, discussion transition, and closing statement. Will have one final mock conference/interview in private.

Media Rep(s) will participate in Post Event news conference.

Media Tim

eline

Timeline: InternalTactic Week One Week Two Week Three Week FourNew Intranet Management team

and general staff will meet to discuss desired system features and tools.

Management will give plans to IT, who will convert them into a TWT event Intranet.

IT will return plans to Management, who will then brief general staff and unveil new system. Will begin being used to log pre-sale goals at final Rally.

Sales people will log goals and actual sales in Intranet, driving their competitive spirits among coworkers.

Employee Created Posters

Management will announce poster creation contest to general staff, where any submitted poster will be judged and winning poster will become the office face of the event.

Staffs will form teams to create posters and begin working. Work is to be complete by the end of the week. Voting for the office favorite will begin.

Voting will close. Winner will be announced at closest Rally meeting, and hung around the office. Copies will be made for distribution.

Winning poster will be hung in office and also be distributed at show to buyers and media.

Weekly Office Rallys Management will meet to set a weekly date and time for Rally meetings. Trial Rally Meeting will be held with all staff.

Staff will be asked to provide feedback on meeting format, and 2nd Rally will be held. General event Q&A will occur.

Staff will prepare written goal statements for event at 3rd Rally, and determine an overall group goal (not sales related) as a booster.

Final Rally will occur as a sort of pre-event employee celebration on reaching a TWT milestone. Specific roles will be handed out and final event Q&A will occur.

Budget Breakdown

The following slide breaks down our budget for this event:

Expense Item Price Target Audience(s)Marketing: Web Design, Publication Design, Further Advertising (Physical)

Web Design: $10,000Publication Design: $7,700 Further Physical Advertising (Television and Internet): $122,000Total: $139,700

-External-Media

People: Marketing Team (10 individuals)Event Staff (6 TWT employees)Public Relations Team (3 individuals)Event Photographer (1 individual)

Marketing Team Salary: $53,000 x 10 people: $530,000Event Staff: $1,000 x 6 people: $6,000Event Photographer: $3,000Total: $539,000

-Internal

Event Transportation/Meals/Accommodations (for Event Staff and Photographer)

Roundtrip Airfare: $1,000 x 7 individuals: $7,000Meals: $250 meal check x 7 individuals: $1750Hotel Accommodations: 4 Double Rooms at local 3 star hotel: $600/weekend x 4: $2400Total: $11,150

-Internal

Event Costs: New Product Prototypes (9 total)Booth Rental (for the weekend): Booth Supplies (tablecloth, event branding):

New Product Prototypes: $150 x 9 prototypes: $1350Booth Rental: $10,000Booth Supplies: (tablecloth, event branding): $1,000Total: $12,350

-External-Media

Demonstration Training (6 employees) Demonstration Training (Total Cost): $2,000 x 6 employees: $12,000

-Internal

N/A N/A N/A

Total: $714,200 N/A

Evaluation

• In order to measure the success of our sales at the event, we will do a final sale count upon returning to the office, to see how many pre-sales, reservations, and catalogue subscriptions we received. We will determine our success upon our numbers, and their proximity to our original goal, using the following scale:– 0-50 50-100 100-150 150-200 200-250 300 300-350 350-400 400-450 450-500 500+

• Units in this scale equal number of sales. Green indicates a positive (increase or exceeding mark) and red indicates a negative (decrease or ineffective mark)

• We will prove our success by our numbers (and the above scale), in addition to the number of subscriptions we receive, ranked on a similar scale, with subscription counts as a unit, and 60 being our center number or goal. The subscription scale is as follows:– 0-20 20-40 40-60 60 60-80 80-100 100-120 120+

• We will also regard any customer feedback as absolute, utilizing it as reasoning for our sales trend resulting in a certain way. The more positive feed back we receive (oral, written, media news release comments) the better.