Making Barbie envious ...
The first Distroller World opened in Mexico City in 2004 and was the brainchild of artist and entrepreneur Amparo “Amparin” Serrano.
The idea for the babies came from Serrano’s desire to give her nieces something that would inspire them to be more caring and nurturing, said Daryn Fillis, chief executive of Distroller North America.
Serrano named the chain Distroller, pronounced “destroyer”, in honour of an earlier candy venture that Mexican health authorities refused to allow because the product was so sour and acidic it eliminated good flora from the small intestine.
For the toys’ introduction to the United States, “we started looking at how we could enhance the idea, how to communicate the story and make it commercially successful,” Fillis said.
Serrano’s large-eyed creations also include dolls that pay homage to many Mexican cultural themes, although those distinctly Mexican products have yet to make the trip north.
Distroller’s US stores offer three types of so-called neonate babies — nerlies, zygoties and espongies — that cost $19.99 (Dh73.52) to $36.99.
The toy company has followed some fairly traditional retail paths, including developing a line of accessories big enough to make Barbie envious. Ongoing playtime is driven by a broad range of accessories, priced at $3.99 to $54.99, that include vitamins, food, outfits and incubators.
The new babies are also limited in number, and new ones are introduced a few times a year.
“There’s the collectability, which makes it aspirational,” Fillis said. “There are also some marketing tricks we’re applying and that’s what bridges the gap from the artist to the commercial experience.”
The company’s first US stores, in San Diego and Houston, launched last year. The new Distroller store in California opened this month.