New Board Game Exclusively for Starbucks to be Unveiled at Toy Fair

Feb. 11, 2002--Bensussen Deutsch & Associates (BD&A), the Seattle area-based merchandise agency responsible for creating the merchandise strategy behind last year's two largest grossing movies and all three of Major League Baseball's largest in-stadium promotions, today announced it has created, Hear Me Out! a new board game which will be distributed exclusively through select Starbucks stores nationwide. The game will be released in late-May of this year. BD&A executives will unveil the new board game -- which falls under the company's retail toy brand, ToySite -- this week in New York at Toy Fair, the premier toy industry trade show. The game requires its players to navigate through three Hear Me Out! actions, putting together entertaining -- and sometimes frightening -- character profiles of friends and family. When performing under the Brainstorming action each player may be asked to free-associate on topics ranging from frozen food to 80's pop television. The Survey Says! action will require players to predict the group's consensus on conventional wisdom of such things as history's most overrated rock bands or the ingredients of hot dogs. And when asked to provide Sound Bites players will have to improvise on topics and situations like how one might speak to a group of vegetarians on the virtues of meat.

The game was invented by Michael Schiller, vice president of BD&A's Consumer Products & Licensing division, and Michael Stusser, an award-winning gamemaker and the co-author of the Doonsbury Game with Garry Trudeau, which won "Best Game of the Year" by Games Magazine in 1994.

"We're extremely pleased with the feedback we're getting from people who have tested the game," said Michael Schiller, vice president of BD&A's Consumer Products & Licensing division. "It creates a really fun atmosphere among those who are playing and really brings out the opinionated and fun side of people. We couldn't be more excited with our relationship with Starbucks as well. Their customers are exactly the demographic who will enjoy this game."

"Hear Me Out is a blast," said Kristin Stanislaw, merchandise manager, Starbucks. "It is exactly the type of game our customers will embrace. It is intelligent and fun. It is a nice fit for Starbucks."

BD&A will unveil the game at Toy Fair this week. Demonstrations can be seen in the BD&A Showroom at: Toy Building South, room 1303.

For more information, visit the BD&A web site at www.bdainc.com.

SOURCE Businesswire