Ideas for ways Dept 56 can extend their brand

There may be no corporate initiative to extend their brand, or no need exhibited by their passionate customer base for them to go beyond ceramic buildings, but being a public company, there is always a need to build revenue and growth. I came up with a few ideas:

* More product placement in movies and television shows

* A line of fictional books placed in the different village scenes

* Paintings and prints of village displays

* A set of collectible trading cards, one card for each building and accessory

* Collectible houses for kids, maybe a plastic holiday village, to get them started

* More new series ideas. See our poll on the sidebar.

Some of these ideas were generated in a previous post on "creative ideas Department 56 should consider". We also had a popular post on ideas for new Snow Village Halloween pieces.

Comments

A Couple's Wintery Village Scenes

Showing that just because Christmas is over, doesn't mean it's time to take down your snowy scenes...I found this article in the Villages Daily Sun : "Walking in a winter wonderland takes on new meaning when anyone enters the home of Don and Lorraine Crowley. The couple have snowy scenes from the North Pole and Elfland set up in the living room, while the garage is filled with a huge Christmas in the City display, complete with streets, bridges and a baseball park. But for Lorraine, president of the Tri-County Department 56 Collector’s Club, the displays are nothing out of the ordinary, considering many of the club members have similar displays in their own homes. “Everybody has different ways of displaying it,” Lorraine said of the Department 56 collectibles. “You find different things. When somebody comes up with a unique idea, you try and share it. It’s always nice to see somebody do something different.” ... click here to read the rest of the article

Rest in Peace, Stan

A dark cloud formed over Manhattan yesterday, and just as suddenly, a bright light shine through the clouds as the sky was ripped from the inside out by thousands of legendary heroes, assembling to pay homage to their Creator and his aged typewriter. As each keystroke landed with a thud, the letters screamed out as loudly as they could, "Excelsior!”, one last time. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stan-lee-photos-marvel-comics_us_5be9e7d9e4b044bbb1a77969

Tomorrow is Labor Day, Next Up is Halloween!

Hooked on Department 56 has a great article on tips for creating your halloween village . The article features tips and informative links on all of the wonderful and scary options for outfitting your decorative halloween villages, including haunted sounds, spooky lights, and flying witches. The story also features information about The 2008 Haunted Rails Engine & Coal Car, and Rickety Railroad Station, two of Department 56's Halloween village pieces created to mark the ten year anniversary of D56 Halloween. While the train itself is ceramic and non-working, you still get the feel of the haunted railroad. The also is not limited to just D56, as it also mentions Disney Villains from Hawthorne Village. An excerpt from the story: "In 1998, Department 56 introduced the first Halloween village collection. Department 56 Halloween Village features spooky castles, flying witches, skeletons, and gravediggers. Many of the buildings are lighted with fiber optic light effects, that fli...

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