The Thing That Would Not Die

Toy maker Playing Mantis had a devout online community. So why did they almost kill it?

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Model Community

This inventive toy maker has an on-line community like you dream about. So how come they almost killed it?

A short time ago, in a galaxy about 90 miles from Chicago, there was a hot little toy company that had a mysterious competitive weapon: an on-line customer community that really smoked. Only the rulers of the company didn't quite get what a powerful weapon they had. It took a gutsy employee (with a knack for being really aggravating) to show how the right interactive Internet presence could help the business generate ideas, solve problems, and tap into customer passion for its products.

The company: Playing Mantis Inc. of South Bend, Ind., manufacturer of die-cast cars, plastic-model kits, and action figures. The employee: Lisa Greco. In the physical world she is the company's customer-service manager, opinionated and outspoken despite a Fargo-like midwestern cheer. On-line, however, she is something more mighty to behold. As moderator of the bulletin board dedicated to the company's model kits, this single mom is a nurturing guide for the adult men who come to her bulletin board to talk about toys. She is Mistress of Monster Models. The Queen of Styrene.

Simply put, Greco represents a customer's pipeline into the heart of the company. That's an incredible boon to hobbyists accustomed to traditional toy makers, which guard product information as if they were Napoleon Solo protecting nuclear firing codes. Playing Mantis, on the other hand, is available 24/7 on the boards. Anyone can ask questions or find out about new products. Moreover, toy-heads can safely indulge their love of the trappings of childhood without fear of being scorned as terminal nerds.

What Playing Mantis gets is even more valuable. Through the boards it can reach the burning core of its customer base with company news, promotions, and quick-and-dirty survey questions. It can vet product ideas with real consumers before committing a dime to development. Last year alone, board members promoted new products, provided remedies for Web-site problems, and helped bring Playing Mantis to a new understanding of who was actually buying its stuff.

And to think the company almost threw the whole thing away.

Before we tell that story, let's consider a simple proposition: In this world, men don't grow up. That is no expert opinion, nor is it the result of painstaking research. It's just common sense. Ask anyone who ever married one.

Once we can agree on that, the whole story falls into place: why Tom Lowe, son of one of the world's best-known entrepreneurs, started a company dedicated to reissuing lines of toys from the 1960s; how the company became successful despite the toy industry's reputation for a competitive viciousness usually reserved for totalitarian nations; and how both Lowe and Playing Mantis discovered the secret formula (wouldn't be much of a tale if it didn't have a secret formula) for building a vibrant, successful on-line customer community -- the Holy Grail of all E-commerce companies.

Here's the thing: most American men never, ever lose their passion for the playthings of their past. That's why store shelves are packed with classic hits of the '60s -- Hot Wheels cars, Etch A Sketch, and the Duncan Butterfly Yo-Yo, to name a few. Toy makers know that parents make the big buying decisions and that fathers especially never lose affection for the toys they loved as kids. Which brings us to Lowe and his company.

Walk into Playing Mantis and you'll see drab offices, just like those of any typical light-manufacturing company, but with one exception. There are toys everywhere. Glass cases in the lobby display build-ups of the company's Polar Lights line of model kits (mostly foot-tall figures of monsters, spies, and space robots). The walls are festooned with test shots and lineups of the company's Johnny Lightning die-cast toy race cars. Employees' shelves are packed with Pezzes and other playthings.

Lowe's own modest office is especially crammed with goodies. His shelves are filled with Playing Mantis products, and the walls are covered with framed photos of NASCAR champions and muscle cars. But Lowe's real treasures are stowed behind a Cyclone security fence in the shipping bay. That's where the boss keeps his personal stash of collectibles. He has enough Johnny Lightnings and Captain Actions there to make a grown man -- should there be such a thing -- swoon.

But for all the play factor, the corporate headquarters is still basically a cube farm in the unglamorous burg of South Bend. Playing Mantis, founded in 1994 and still tiny by toy-industry standards, has only 40 employees and revenues of $15 million to $20 million. Most of the employees are locals. Half have been hired in the past two years.

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