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December 22, 2009 Portlandbiz

National limelight boosts Crooked House

By Carol Coultas

Tripling sales due in part to exposure on two highly viewed television shows has helped Portland's Kids Crooked House Co. move to new digs and enter several high-profile partnerships.

Glen Halliday, CEO and founder of the company that makes whimsical play structures, says he expects to be moved into a new home by the end of the year, marking the first time his five-year-old company's offices and manufacturing operations will be under one roof.

"This will make us more efficient," he says of the 3,000-square-foot space he's leasing at 190 Riverside St.

That will come in handy as the company is poised to go international, building on its brand that got a tremendous boost when the play houses were featured last summer on reality show Jon & Kate Plus 8, and continued with last weekend's exposure on ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Halliday says sales have tripled in the last three months over all of 2008.

"We did over a half a million in sales this year," he says.

Halliday expects that number to only grow, as three new partnerships are ready to launch in 2010. One, a promotion with Kinder Chocolate, a division of Italy-based Ferrero Chocolate, dovetails with Kids Crooked House's new marketing tagline, "Have you played today?"

"The CEO of Ferraro saw the [Jon and Kate Plus 8] episode and thought the houses were the coolest things in the world," says Halliday. More than 10 million viewers saw that episode, in which the couple, parents to a set of twins and sextuplets, announced their separation.

"It cost us a fortune to be on that show, but it was a gamble that paid off," says Halliday. He estimates between the construction of four play houses, transport, support services and ancillary costs, the company spent over $100,000. "But you know, we had $4 million to $5 million in a marketing budget and we're not going to spend a penny of it now."

The Ferraro CEO reached out to Halliday and they developed a promotion involving 10 specially designed Kinder Crooked Houses that Kinder will award as contest prizes, which will launch primarily in Canada next year.

Crooked House is also teaming with Early Advantage, a children's language programming affiliate of the British Broadcasting Corp. in an ad campaign that will feature the houses in Parenting and Parents magazines. And a promotion of Crooked House's newest product, Crooked Climber, a swing set that looks like it was designed by Dr. Seuss, is set to launch in 2010 with Magic Tree House, a children's division of Random House publishers. Halliday says Crooked Climber will be featured in about 500,000 books.

Besides the partnerships, Halliday is also talking to Hasbro and Apple about possible collaborations.

"We've worked really hard, but we've been really lucky as well," Halliday says of his company. "This all started when I built something for my kid and people said, ‘You know, you could sell that'. It just took off."

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