Jakks To Support New Interactive Microphone With Major Ad Campaign

Jakks Pacific will back the release of its I Am T-Pain Mic, unveiled at CES (CED Jan 10 p12), with a major ad campaign including national TV spots, a company spokeswoman said at the American International Toy Fair in New York Wednesday. The company declined to say how much it’s spending on the campaign.

The device, a microphone featuring pitch-correcting software similar to an application previously made available for smartphones, will ship “around July” at $39.99, and the TV spots will follow in September and then again in October to November for the holiday season, the spokeswoman said. The device can be connected to an MP3 player. A prototype was shown at Toy Fair, along with speakers that will be sold at $19.99 a pair and decoration packs at $6.99 when they ship at the same time as the T-Pain Mic, she said. The speakers come with a belt clip that makes them portable.

The T-Pain Mic products will be marketed under the new Pro Tunes brand name, and Jakks is looking to have them distributed at CE retail stores in addition to its usual toy accounts, the spokeswoman said. But she said it was too soon to name the retailers.

A website promoting the Mic will fully launch in May, and social network initiatives including Facebook and Twitter will be “kicking in in the next few weeks,” the spokeswoman said. Rapper T-Pain, meanwhile, will be in the spotlight at about the same time as he releases a new album and tour to support it, she said. More than 2 million downloads of the iPhone application were made in 2010 at $2.99 and it was the No. 1 licensed application, Jakks said. An additional 550,000 songs were bought for the app at 99 cents each, it said.

Jakks also touted a new line of Spy Net products at Toy Fair, shipping in fall. The line includes the new version of the Spy Net Video Watch shown at CES that adds Night Vision technology to the watch that Jakks fielded last year. The new Video Watch 2.0 will cost $59.99, not $49.99 as we were told by Jakks at CES, Marketing Vice President Sarah Handley told Consumer Electronics Daily. The new model is $10 more than the watch that Jakks fielded last year. For the extra $10, consumers are getting Night Vision technology added, along with some new applications, Handley said. Jakks demonstrated how the product will work on a prototype handheld device at Toy Fair rather than in its final watch form.

Also new to the Spy Net line are a $24.99 Laser Tripwire featuring a laser transmitter, receiver and mirrors that will work within a 100-foot range, a $19.99 Audio Bug recording device that can be connected to a computer via USB and uses the same Adobe Air app that the Video Watch uses, $39.99 Video Recording Glasses that can record video and still images, a $19.99 Bionic Ear recording device that can pick up sound under glass and nearly any other material except concrete or bricks, a $9.99 HQ (Headquarters) Door Alarm that uses a card swipe system to allow a door to be opened just like far more expensive systems, an updated version of the Spy Clops Bionic Eye at $39.99 with some minor upgrades, $19.99 Recon Binoculars, and a $9.99 Diversion Device resembling more costly devices used by spies -- at least the ones in movies and TV shows, Handley said. The Video Recording Glasses will ship a little later than most of the other items in the line, and is “probably going to be in stores in October,” she said.

Specifications for the glasses’ still image and video resolution weren’t immediately available. But Handley said we shouldn’t expect HD quality. “Our core consumer is kids,” and “most kids don’t need a high-definition experience,” she said. HD would have added a significant premium to the product’s cost, she said. But she said the company is always “looking at all technologies,” and if the price comes down enough on HD to enable it to be added at not much of an extra cost “we'd love to include that” feature in future products.

Jakks is also still fielding a $24.99 Snake Cam attachment for the Video Watch from last year, Handley said. It works with the new watch also, but can’t work in the dark for the new Night Vision feature, she said. Jakks has “had a few requests for that” feature to be added to the Snake Cam, “so it’s definitely something that we're looking at,” she said.

Also new from Jakks will be a Golden Tee Golf plug-and-play TV game modeled after the popular arcade golf game of the same name, and a followup to its Big Buck Pro Hunter shooting plug-and-play TV game, Big Buck Safari. Both are shipping in the fall at $39.99 each, and are targeted at older consumers than the company’s TV Games products. The standout of the company’s new TV Games line, meanwhile, is a Cars 2 title that will ship at about the same time that the new Disney/Pixar Cars sequel is released theatrically this summer, probably in July, Handley said. It features a full dashboard controller and will cost $39.99, $20 more than the company’s standard TV Games products, she said.