Ty Inc
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Ty (styled ty) is an American
multinational corporation A multinational corporation (MNC; also called a multinational enterprise (MNE), transnational enterprise (TNE), transnational corporation (TNC), international corporation, or stateless corporation, is a corporate organization that owns and cont ...
headquartered in
Oak Brook, Illinois Oak Brook is a village (Illinois), village in DuPage County, Illinois, with a very small portion in Cook County, Illinois, Cook County. The population was 8,163 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. A suburb of Chicago, it contains th ...
, a suburb of Chicago. It was founded by
Ty Warner Harold Ty Warner (born September 3, 1944) is an American billionaire toy manufacturer, businessman, and convicted felon. He is the CEO, sole owner, and co-founder of Ty Inc. which manufactures and distributes stuffed toys, notably Beanie Babies. H ...
in 1986. It designs, develops and sells products, most notably
Beanie Babies Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed toys created by American businessman Ty Warner, who founded Ty Inc. in 1986. The toys are stuffed with plastic pellets ("beans") rather than conventional soft stuffing and come in many different forms, mostly ...
, exclusively to specialty markets worldwide.


Internet


First "business-to-consumer" website

Lina Trivedi was a college student when she worked at Ty Inc. She approached Warner to talk about a new development that existed on college campuses called the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
. She indicated that, while the Internet was primarily a research tool, college students were starting to make personal
website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...
s. She thought that creating a website for Beanie Babies could present an unprecedented opportunity to engage the market. She brought to Ty's office a 14.4k modem and demonstrated how the Internet works. Warner was intrigued and gave Trivedi a free license to create a website using her judgment and skills. By the time the first iteration of the Ty website was published in late 1995, only 1.4% of Americans were using the Internet. The population of people using the Internet grew exponentially in the following years, along with the popularity of Beanie Babies. Ty was the first business to produce a
direct-to-consumer Direct-to-consumer (DTC or D2C) or business-to-consumer (B2C) is the business model of selling products directly to customers and thereby bypassing any third-party retailers, wholesalers, or middlemen. Direct-to-consumer sales are usually transa ...
website. This was a major contributing factor to the early and rapidly growing popularity of
Beanie Babies Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed toys created by American businessman Ty Warner, who founded Ty Inc. in 1986. The toys are stuffed with plastic pellets ("beans") rather than conventional soft stuffing and come in many different forms, mostly ...
. All Beanie Baby hangtags had the website
URL A uniform resource locator (URL), colloquially known as an address on the Web, is a reference to a resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identi ...
and a call to action printed underneath the poems and birthdays that commanded audiences to visit the company website with text that read "Visit our web page!!!" This effort evolved into the world's first Internet sensation.


Fundraising

Ty has been involved in a large amount of fundraising, with the proceeds donated to various causes. Some of this has been raised from the sale of certain Beanie Babies. It has also been raised through other means, such as voting for a fee. One such fundraising Beanie Baby was Ariel, made to raise funds for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. Its sales raised a total of $3.4 million for the foundation. Others include Aware and Awareness, sold to raise funds for
breast cancer Breast cancer is a cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a Breast lump, lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, Milk-rejection sign, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipp ...
research and awareness; and Barbaro, created in memory of Barbaro the Horse, to raise funds for the
University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine The University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, commonly referred to as Penn Vet, is the veterinary school of the University of Pennsylvania. Penn Vet is one of only two Ivy League veterinary schools in the United States. Establish ...
, which tried to save the horse. Ty has also raised money for the 2004
PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, the PGA Tour Champion ...
with a beanie called ChariTee; one, signed by
Jack Nicklaus Jack William Nicklaus (; born January 21, 1940), nicknamed "the Golden Bear", is an American retired professional golfer and List of golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, golf course designer. He is widely considered to be one of the greate ...
, was auctioned for $455. Ty was the shirt sponsor of
Portsmouth FC Portsmouth Football Club is a professional association football club based in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. The team is currently competing in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English football league system in the 2024–25 ...
from 2002 to 2005, in which the club was promoted to the
Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...
. A Beanie Baby named "Cito" was given out to school children in
Montecito, California Montecito (archaic use of Spanish for woodland or countryside) is an unincorporated town in Santa Barbara County, California, United States.McCormack, Don (1999). ''McCormack's Guides Santa Barbara and Ventura 2000''. Mccormacks Guides. p. 58. ...
, to welcome them back to school after the area was affected by the 2018 Southern California mudflows.


In popular culture

During the wake of Beanie Babies' success, Beanie Baby-centric publications were issued. One of the largest was '' Mary Beth's Bean Bag World'', a monthly magazine dedicated to Beanie Babies and competing plush toys. It ran from 1997 to 2001. In August 2021, Beanie Babies was the season 1, episode 4 feature on
Vice Media Vice Media Group LLC is a Canadian-American digital media and broadcasting company. Vice Media encompasses four main business areas: Vice Studios Group (film and TV production); Vice TV (a joint venture with A&E Networks, also known as Vicelan ...
's '' Dark Side of the 90s'' entitled "Beanie Babies Go Bust". A documentary film about Beanie Babies, titled ''Beanie Mania'', was released on December 23, 2021, on
HBO Max Max (known in other countries as, and soon to be reverted globally to HBO Max) is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. It is a proprietary unit of Warner Bros. Discovery Streaming on behalf of Home Box Of ...
. The story of Ty has also been covered by two films, both named ''The Beanie Bubble'', one a 2022 documentary directed by Ben Kitnick and a 2023 comedy-drama directed by Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash and written by Gore, based on the 2015 book ''The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute'' by Zac Bissonnette about the Beanie Babies bubble. It stars Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook and Geraldine Viswanathan.


References


External links

* {{Teddy Bears American companies established in 1986 Beanie Babies Companies based in DuPage County, Illinois Oak Brook, Illinois Toy companies established in 1986 Toy companies of the United States