By: Nancy Lombardi

Hop on the M&Ms (Licensed Product) Train

Starting at the end of June, the M&M’s Brand Summer Pallet Train rolled into more than 2,700 Walmart stores across the country. Mars Retail Group engineered the idea for the 16-foot double-sided pallet display, along with the Mars Walmart sales team and licensees SRI and CandyRific. In addition to featuring M&M’s Brand Chocolate Candies, the display included plush, totes, T-shirts, tumblers with straws, dispensers, key chains, fleece blankets, and candy novelties. As items are sold, Walmart is able to add candy or even reduce the pallets so the display remained colorful and attractive. The M&M’s Brand 2011 Summer Pallet Train is the result of a year of planning and teamwork, and sales exceeded expectations, according to Mars Retail Group.

Buffalo Games Celebrates 25th Anniversary

Buffalo Games was founded in 1986 by Paul and Eden Dedrick with the World’s Most Difficult jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle was sold to independent retailers and mail-order catalogs.

In 1996, after 10 years of using outsourced manufacturing, Buffalo Games purchased its first piece of machinery and started the process of in-sourcing the manufacturing of its own products, says the company

Today, Buffalo Games is a vertically integrated consumer products company with 80 employees in administration, design, manufacturing, marketing and sales, in an 85,000 square foot headquarters in Buffalo, New York. The company currently services 3,000+ retail accounts, including Walmart, Target, Toys “R” Us, Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, as well as gift and specialty stores throughout the U.S. and Canada with more than 200 Buffalo Games branded board games and jigsaw puzzles.

To celebrate this milestone, the founders hosted a party at the Buffalo Zoo in early August for employees, their families, friends, and colleagues.

Pictured here are Paul and Eden Dedrick at the 25th anniversary party. They are standing in front of a Photomosaic image of the Buffalo Games’ building. It was a gift from the employees created by Robert Silvers who also creates the company’s Photomosaics puzzles.

Fan Yang’s Bubble Show Is Hitting the Road

Fan Yang is taking his Gazillion Bubble Show on the road in a first-ever North American Tour. Produced by five-time Tony Award-winning producer, Jon B. Platt (Wicked, The Book of Mormon), the show will offer a unique theatrical experience for audiences of all ages. Yang will transform a multitude of beautiful bubbles into a thrilling, interactive, multi-million dollar spectacular. Audiences will be wowed by bouncing bubbles, floating bubbles, misty, tiny, and massive bubbles as they experience the world’s first live “snow globe” when millions of tiny bubbles fill the stage.

Gazillion Bubble Show was conceived by Yang. Over the past two decades he has sold out performances and earned critical and audience acclaim in Germany, France, Spain, Vietnam, Singapore, and many other countries around the globe. Yang currently holds 17 Guinness World Records; most recently for having put 108 people inside a single bubble. His performances have been broadcast worldwide on television, including Oprah, Ellen, Late Night with David Letterman, The View, and many more.

For more info on Gazillion Bubble Show, go to gazillionbubbleshow.com.

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