Green Frog Grows by Leaps and Bounds

Since it began in 1996, Green Frog Art has established a reputation for melding high-quality construction with distinctive designs for low prices not just within the juvenile furniture industry, but with parents across the country as well. Today Green Frog is working harder than ever to continue to innovate and improve its products for parents and their children. Under a new management team, Green Frog is continuing to build relationships with customers and provide them the furniture, accessories, and décor they can proudly and confidently bring to their homes.

The Giggle Guide^® recently caught up with Jay Wohl from Green Frog for a look behind the scenes:

You have acquired a brand that started about 18 years ago. What are the benefits and challenges of acquiring an existing brand?

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Just to clarify, Saul Wolhendler is the President of the new Green Frog; I am what we call V.P. of MIH (Make it Happen).

Our initial Cradle line is based on the original and very successful Green Frog Art cradles. We have updated the specs somewhat, improved the packaging and building manuals, and consumers are very happy so far with the new changes. Our stretched canvas art line is attractive and well-priced featuring many different themes to fill the wall in any house, and as customers are buying them so fast we had to re-order hundreds and hundreds more.

We are presently launching our line of high-end super fancy diaper bags and let me just say the quality on these is unsurpassed by almost anything else in the diaper bag space. We really went all out in terms of fabrics, hardware, and features to make these bags stand out as really upscale diaper bags.

We also are in the midst of launching our version of the kiddie backpack; they feature colorful animal characters that are cute and once again we spent a lot of time on detail to make certain that we are delivering a quality bag under the Green Frog logo.

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What are three keys to your management team being able to successfully renew the Green Frog brand?

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Our team brings manufacturing expertise and know-how to produce a superior product and quickly turn around projects. We have experience with marketing and branding retail products and we hope we can bring that experience to the juvenile industry. We also have a very dynamic team that is extremely goal focused and driven from the customer service aspect to product excellence, and we work very well with each other.

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What is your past experience that will ensure growth?

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Combined our team has experience in every aspect of growing and building a company including operations, manufacturing, sales and marketing. On a personal level, I feel that I have a keen understanding of the consumer market and product-packaging and branding.

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Do “green” or eco-friendly concerns influence your business decisions? If so, how? What parts of “Green Frog” are environmentally green

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Part of our Mission statement is that we want to be an environmentally conscious company, that is to say, we want to contribute to the environment’s growth and health. The first thing we did was to find a reputable organization that we can partner with to plant trees to offset the wood that is being used in our cradle construction. ‘Trees for the Future’ plants trees in rural communities around the world and they will be planting a tree for every cradle we manufacture.

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What is one new trend you’re seeing in the marketplace?

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Eco-friendly products is definitely a trend that will only grow in demand which is great for everybody. There is also a demand for innovative and tech savvy products in the baby industry and we are working on a very unique line to fill that need.

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How do you market your brand?

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At this point we are mostly caught up in getting our product lines up and running, so our focus on the most part has not been on marketing to date. We will be working with PR people to get the buzz going as well as a social media specialist that will help spread content on the social media sites.

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What is the biggest challenge your business faces today?

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We don’t see challenge — only opportunity. ☺

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What is one change/addition that will most have a positive impact on your business this year?

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There are many, but first and foremost it will be our most innovative and gorgeous cradles that we will be launching later this year.

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Share your strategy for expansion into new product categories?

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It’s very simple. We want to bring products to the market that will please the parents out there and we want to make sure the products are useful, comfortable, quality, and hip of course. So anything that fits within those guidelines.

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What philanthropic programs does Green Frog help support?

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As mentioned, we partnered with Trees for the Future which helps rural communities in third world countries with their agricultural needs. We also have partnered with Star Spangled Babies, which is a wonderful program run by Operation Homefront. SSB holds baby showers for military families around this country providing them with their baby needs. For our first program we are donating one piece of art for every piece sold. We hope to do much much more for them.

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How are you working with Brixy retailers?

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Brixy is helping us get out the word to their retailers about the new Green Frog and about our products. We are working with Brixy to set up custom programs to benefit them specifically.

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What is your one piece of advice for someone entering the children’s market?

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At this point we are taking advice and not giving it but I will say this — not unlike every other industry, the keys to success are persistence and consistence.

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What is something someone may not already know about you personally?

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I am a very involved dad of 3 beautiful children and the rest of the team are also parents of children as well. This lends us a ton of perspective as we go about creating products to satisfy babies, kids and parents everywhere.

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For childhood and beyond: www.greenfrogbaby.com