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Ant Farm Grows To Fill Toy Niche
A giant remote-controlled ant is crawling across the conference table at Uncle Milton Industries Inc. in Westlake Village.
Frank Adler, vice president of marketing, works the controls with a crystal skull device that hints at its branding as a licensed toy from the “Indiana Jones” movie.
“Who better to do ants — a remote control ant?” Adler asks.
It’s a good question, since Uncle Milton is built on a business that traces its success back to the original Ant Farm sold in 1956. President Steve Levine is the son of the company’s founder and Ant Farm inventor, Milton Levine.
“This started it all,” Steve Levine said, holding up an Ant Farm box.
But since then, the company has grown — a lot — and expanded to include new toys that stick to science and nature themes.
Going forward, Uncle Milton continues to invest heavily in research and development for creating toys.
Recent growth is coming from toys tied to big names, such as the “Indiana Jones” line of science and learning toys. In 2009, the company is introducing a line of “Star Wars” science toys.
Photo by Uncle Milton Industries Inc..
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Jaclyn Wells on November 19th, 2008 11:58 am
I agree…who better then a robot ant? i wonder though…is the ant small enough to put inside the ant farm and naviagate around so as to operate like a real ant…which would really give them an insight as to how the ant farm would really work out if marketed and produced.
cassy on November 20th, 2008 2:15 am
There are many educational and fun toys available in the market. Science toys are designed to provoke your kids interest in acquisition of knowledge and give them a better understanding of their environment.
Parents should be aware of what kind of toys to buy, that kids will enjoy at the same time help kids and learn something from it.
Ant farm is nice science toy for kids. Its highly and fun!
Jeffrey Wu on November 20th, 2008 3:54 am
Interesting that R&D is mentioned as their new product introduction (NPI) processes are clearly a problem. The article does not mention the failed products that were tested in the market on live customers instead of through an internal quality assurance process.
One glaring example: they just canceled their Hermit Crab Cove product. This product was billed as providing a learning experience by providing live crabs in fun habitat and marketed through channels such as eToys to young children and their parents. The problem was they could not fulfill delivery of live crabs, leaving consumers stuck with empty plastic containers. They failed to understand the logistical problems with shipping the crabs and established a distribution chain without visibility, meaning they could not automatically ship the live crabs when the weather permitted because they didn’t know who their customers actually were.
Two major lessons in the science and art of distribution and tiered retail sales channels.
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