by Nick Somoski

Created on: May 23, 2009   Last Updated: December 12, 2010

The Beanie Baby fad has fizzled? I've hardly noticed - I still collect them. I have an entire wall filled with Beanie Babies, from the very early ones to the most recent ones.

This title immediately jumped out at me. All kidding aside, it's a sad thing that the once-crazy fad of Beanie Babies has died. I remember when they were first coming out in 1993, the year my son was born. They were flying hot off the shelves. Every kid - every adult - wanted a Beanie Baby on their bedroom shelf, in their happy meal, or next to them when they went to bed every night. They were cheap and easily obtainable, even though they weren't mass produced.

And because they weren't mass produced, it was a shock to everyone how popular they became. Ty, the makers of the Beanie Baby, reported to make an estimated $6 billion in their Beanie empire in a relatively short run on the market. They had become a pop culture institution. And, Ty played off their success with all intelligence.

In 1993, Ty, a then unknown company, introduced their Beanie Baby line of stuffed animals to the general public, with the first 9 animals hitting the market. They flew off the shelves in their first month. Throughout the next year, sales were showing no signs of slowing down. By 1995, however, Ty wanted to avoid a sophomore sales slump. Their plan was to lay in the background. They decided to pull 75% of their television ads in an attempt to keep the toy in the minds of everyone without making it annoying.

And they succeeded. For 1995 and 1996, sales continued to go up. They were able to keep the element of surprise to the Beanie Baby and its followers, which kept consumers buying. They were sold at smaller "specialty" shops, with each Beanie Baby identifiable, personalized, and simple. Obviously, their marketing strategy paid off.

In 1999, seeing a sales drop-off over the previous 2 years, Ty decided to stop producing the Beanie Baby. And that was when the fad began to fizzle. Because of customer demand, Ty ended up reversing the decision, and still makes them to this day. The only problem: they're no longer a fad.

There's not a simple reason to this. I feel the fad fell off due to the changing of the age. We live in a much more complicated world now than we did 15 years ago, believe it or not. Technology is taking over our lives. New toys and developments are being introduced all the time, and with that, the Beanie Baby ended up getting lost in the shuffle. Consumers had collected the ones they wanted,

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