Soooo, do we all remember the chaos caused by a teddy bear last year? A brilliant marketing strategy, not so brilliant in execution. Last year Build-a-Bear announced, hey bring your child in for a bear and you will only have to pay how old your child is. However, word spread faster than they imagined. Parents reported waiting as long as seven hours for a stuffed animal for their child. The problem came about with their being zero organization with the 'first come first serve' approach, having parents camping outside of Build-a-Bear locations all across the U.S. hours earlier than the store was scheduled to open. creating a ton of security issues.
This year, things will be a little different. For participation, parents will have to go online to buildabear.com and enter for a chance at a ticket. 200,000 shoppers will be selected from the entries and those winners will receive a voucher to collect their child's stuffed animal on select days from June 24-28th. But if you want to enter, I'd do it soon. Entry closes on June 16th and winners will be notified on the 21st. At least with the tweak to this promotion, the only thing that will be crashing is their website.