Silly Bandz: Feeding a Trend

Have you noticed colorful, shaped rubber bands seen on many tweens and young children? Those decorative bands in the shape of symbols, animals, and other outlined objects are a trend. I’m not exactly sure the actual spark of the trend. What I do know is its popularity has sparked other rubber bands within the market. The original multicolored, cheap, shaped rubber band, in the American market, is by Silly Bandz. Rob Croak, the creator of Silly Bandz and its supplier Brainchild Products (BCP) Imports LLC, was featured on Entrepreneur.com in “Trend-Spotter: The Man Behind Silly Bandz” by Tim Beyers.

This entrepreneur got the idea by seeing similar bands in Japan (which is the reason I state Silly Bandz is the original in America) and felt it would flourish in the American market. Thus, he started Silly Bandz and now, is the main supplier of this trend. The most exciting part of the article is reading the ways in which Croak finds success within this trend. We all know trends can last long but, with children and tweens, trends can last for a small moment before another eye-popping item comes along.

Croak tries not to fall out of style by listening to fans and producing ideas kids request. He also pays close attention to other trends amongst teens, tweens, and children. Any new item produced by BCP imports is then produced under the Silly Bandz moniker so as to let those items feed off of its success. Most important is speed; Croak and his team “get an idea from [his] head into production in 30 days”.

While Croak hasn’t had the best of luck in previous ventures, he admits this time luck has come his way. He works really hard to stretch out this moment and capitalize on this money making trend.