Outdoor Products

In 2003, for the first time, we added top licenses, such as Disney®, NASCAR®, Nickelodeon® and Dragon Ball Z® to our kites and wind toys at all price points. For example, our budget-friendly Air Creations-branded poly SpongeBob SquarePants® kite spans 52 inches and retails for approximately $2.99 at mass accounts, while the higher-end Go Fly a Kite-branded SpongeBob 3-D Parafoil kite, a character-shaped kite made of rip-stop nylon, retails for $25.00 at specialty stores. For 2004, we added new blockbuster licenses, Shrek 2™ and Spider-Man®, with innovative and eye-catching designs.

We also introduced thousands of people to the exciting sport of kite surfing in 2003, with our T-foil kite surfing trainer pack from expert Paul Menta, available at surf and sporting goods stores throughout the United States. This new radical sport continues to grow and will be a major event at the 2004 X-Games and other extreme sports competitions.

We unveiled two new products under our Funnoodle brand of pool toys, the SeaFunnoodle™ and Tuboodles™, both of which benefited from successful retail programs with Toys “R” Us stores and other customers nationwide.

And in 2003, we expanded distribution of our Nickelodeon Gak Splat® squishy sports balls, originally launched to our mass-market customers in 2001, to hundreds of new specialty retailers. We were pleased with the sell-through and we expect to increase the number of offerings to the specialty market in 2004 given the success in 2003.