A Trip to the Hospital over Spring Break
Well, not just any hospital - Babyland General Hospital. Located in Cleveland, Georgia (50 miles north of Atlanta proper), it’s the original “hospital” where the Cabbage Patch brand was born.
With my twins Alexandra and Avery in tow, we toured the facilities, where the focal point is Mother Oak, a tree where Cabbage Patch Kids are born. The “doctors” in scrubs (salespeople in clever disguise) engage the children with a dramatic birth scene under the large faux oak.
After the birthing, the performance turns into a faux adoption ceremony for the children purchasing dolls. I’ll admit prejudice, but it was absolutely adorable to watch Alexandra choose her doll, name her Pinky Pinky Doo, then take a formal oath that she would always care for Pinky Pinky Doo.
The trip brought back childhood memories for me. I remember being disappointed that I never got to be a “mother” of what we called “the adoption doll”. My parents thought the whole experience was much too expensive.
Driving home it dawned on me – that brand has been around for over 30 years! Xavier Roberts, proud papa to the entire Cabbage Patch world, was a teenager in 1976 when he experimented with doll making. In 1979, he and five friends opened Babyland General and, by that time, the dolls had taken the shape of babies, each one unique, each one created by a strange process called “needle molding” which, to me, looked a lot like panty hose stretched over cotton.
3 years later, they signed a licensing agreement with Coleco to mass market the dolls under the name “Cabbage Patch Kids.” The craze that resulted made millions for Coleco, Mr. Roberts, and friends. Then Coleco bankrupted, Hasbro picked up the license for a while, and now Mattel stands at the Cabbage Patch helm. Meanwhile, Mr. Roberts sits up in Cleveland, overseeing Babyland General, and managing his impressive antique car collection and his royalties.
Talk about brand stickness! “Sticky” brands are those brands you’re attached to (and more likely to repurchase) because of an emotional connection. Seriously! Like the Babyland General concept. Look at a couple of characteristics of sticky brands:
- They decrease price sensitivity. Check! This mama was willing to pay a rather large amount of money to witness her three year old go through an adoption ceremony with a plastic doll.
- They increase customer loyalty. Check! Google Cabbage Patch Kids on Ebay and see the prices people are getting for the early versions of these dolls. Honestly!
Oh, I should know better! Successful brands focus on a state of mind, not the state of the market. Sticky brands are grown, not launched. And Mr. Roberts’ Cabbage Patch babies? They’re a lesson in brilliant, sticky brand entrepreneurship.
Which got me to thinking – what if they’d franchised Babyland Generals all over the country, predating American Girls with a Cabbage Patch success story? Hmm. . .
If you’re wondering about Miss Alexandra’s Pinky Pinky Doo, well, here I am, two weeks later, reminding her every day about that solemn vow she took under the faux oak tree up in Cleveland. As Pinky’s grandmother, that’s my duty, right?
Some tag line goes here – which we will repeat on every post.
