Build-A-Bear Workshop ( ) is an American retailer that sells customizable teddy bears and other stuffed animals. It is the largest create-your-own animal service, with the other companies in the business consisting of regional and/or locally-owned operations. The company's motto is "Where Best Friends Are Made". The company is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.

History

The company was founded by Maxine Clark in 1997, and opened its first store in the Saint Louis Galleria. Ten years later, over 400 stores operate worldwide: in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, The Netherlands, Norway, the Republic of Ireland, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States (including Puerto Rico). While the majority of Build-A-Bear stores are in shopping malls, as of August, 2008, the company has opened five stores in Major League Baseball stadiums.

2006

To celebrate the release of the 2006 film Happy Feet, plush toys featuring Mumble, the main character of the film, were created and sold. The toys could be fitted with a sound box that said four lines from the film.

For each plush animal from the WWF Collecti-bear Series sold, $1 (USD) goes to the WWF to protect and conserve wildlife around the world. On March 7, 2006, Build-A-Bear Workshop announced that it had so far given $1 million (USD) to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) through the sale of their stuffed bears and other animals.

On May 10, 2006, Build-A-Bear Workshop announced that a line of toys based on its store would be included in Happy Meals at McDonald's restaurants. It became the first plush toy collection included with the Happy Meal to feature removable mix-and-match clothing. Sixteen bears were created. They were released during the four weeks between May 12 and June 8. Each of the bears were released in one of two outfits, unique to each bear, making 32 toys in all. McDonald's ran a second Build-A-Bear Workshop Happy Meal in August, 2007 and the third in October 2009.

In 2006, the company acquired The Bear Factory in the United Kingdom from Hamleys.

2007

Build-A-Bear Workshop celebrated its 10th anniversary by declaring 2007 "The Year of Friendship". It launched its website Build-A-Bearville and announced that it had sold over 50 million stuffed animals in the last ten years. As part of its tenth birthday celebration, the company built 11 playgrounds throughout the USA and Canada in partnership with KaBlam! and announced that it had donated over $11 million to various child and family causes since 1997. A new set of Beary Limited Edition Collectibears called the "Friends Fur All Seasons" arrived to help celebrate the event. Each bear included a Collectibear Pin.

For the children's author Dr. Seuss's birthday, Build-A-Bear Workshop released a toy The Cat in the Hat. For the premiere of the film Shrek the Third, Build-A-Bear Workshop featured a make-your-own Shrek as well as Shrek-themed outfits and limited-edition Shrek babies. For the premiere of the film Surf's Up, Build-A-Bear Workshop featured a Cody Maverick penguin.

The Game Factory signed a deal with Build-A-Bear Workshop to make a Build-A-Bear Workshop video game for the Nintendo DS patform, for release at Christmas 2007.

Special weekends

Each May, there is a weekend known as "Stuffed For Hugs Weekend." Guests at Build-a-Bear are given the opportunity to stuff a pre-selected animal for charity. The entire process is free and also very popular. Some people even dress up the donated animal before sending it to charity. There is also a similar weekend that occurs in late October known as "The Spirit of Giving". In 2008, guests were able to make a stuffed ghost to donate to charity. There are also purple hearts that can be substituted for red ones when stuffing an animal. They cost $1 (US), and go to a different charity each month.

Other Build-A-Bear Workshop brands

Online

In late 2007, Build-A-Bear Workshop opened their new online virtual world, Build-A-Bearville, developed in association with Frima Studio. It allows users to play games and chat in a safe community. Since October 2007 each product has had a unique code which can be used on the site to customize the experience for each user.

As a new promotion for Build-A-Bearville, if any newly launched animal is purchased and brought to life online, the user receives extra online rewards such as Bear Bills, extra room and wallpaper for their Cub Condo house, and an animal adventure with an exclusive reward.

Make Your Own Mascot

"Make Your Own Mascot" stores are trade at Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia), Progressive Field (Cleveland), Great American Ball Park (Cincinnati), AT&T Park (San Francisco), Nationals Park (Washington), and Busch Stadium (St. Louis) featuring the home team's respective mascots, as well ones for Boston Red Sox mascot Wally the Green Monster in the Faneuil Hall Marketplace store and Mr. Met, the mascot of the New York Mets, at their Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan, New York City.

Friends 2B Made

• Friends 2B Made is an interactive store that allows customers to make dolls and purchase related accessories. Build-a-Bear has announced, however, that they will be closing all nine of their Friends 2B Made stores by Fall of 2009.

Build-A-Dino

• Build-A-Dino allows customers to create a stuffed dinosaur and purchase related accessories. The first location was located inside the TREX Cafe in Kansas City, in partnership with Landry's Restaurants. The first stand-alone store was a temporary holiday test at Chesterfield Mall in Chesterfield, Missouri, which closed after the 2006 holidays to relocate to the St. Louis Science Center.

Build-A-Bear at the Zoo

"Build-A-Bear at the Zoo" can be found at the St. Louis Zoo. This store features several types of zoo animals, many of which are endangered and some which are part of the WWF Collectibear series. For each collectibear purchased one dollar is donated to the WWF.

Controversy

Basic Brown Bear Factory lawsuit

In 1999, Eric and Merrilee Woods, the owners of Basic Brown Bear Factory of San Francisco, sued Build-A-Bear for misappropriating trade secrets, copyright infringement, unfair competition, and breach of confidence. It was settled out of court.

According to legal filings, Maxine Clark approached Basic Brown Bear Factory in 1996 to negotiate a buyout offer. Eric and Merrilee Woods were interested in selling the business to Clark to expand it nationally, with the agreement that the Woods would remain as officers. The Woods assert that Clark was exposed to the inner workings of the business and signed a confidentiality agreement. She then made an offer that the Woods rejected, resulting in Clark quickly departing to organize Build-A-Bear Workshop with their trade secrets.

Maxine Clark has stated "We have never claimed that we were the first to have make-your-own stuffed animal businesses in the United States". Regardless, Maxine Clark appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in February 2004, claiming to have invented the Build-A-Bear Workshop with the help of a ten year-old- girl named Katie who thought that Beanie Babies were so hard to find but "were so easy that they could make them." This Oprah appearance was rebroadcast in September 2004 and June 2005.

Though Build-A-Bear Workshop has since applied for or acquired many patents, copyrights, and trademarks related to the business of "create-your-own-animal", controversy, contention, and litigation over the intellectual property abound.

Seventeen

Seventeen magazine has put Build-A-Bear Workshop third in its table of the Best Place to Work for teenagers.

References

External links

• Build-A-Bear Workshop corporate website
• Build-A-Bearville
• Buil-a-Bearville Review on Worlds in Motion
• Article on an award received by Build-a-Bearville