Word on this game is spreading fast

BEARING FRUIT: Founded in 2006, Bananagrams has seen sales of its high-speed word game grow. Pictured above from left, vendor coordinator Katherine Blessinger, marketing executive Shauna Parsons and trade-show manager Meredith Eisenberg. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
BEARING FRUIT: Founded in 2006, Bananagrams has seen sales of its high-speed word game grow. Pictured above from left, vendor coordinator Katherine Blessinger, marketing executive Shauna Parsons and trade-show manager Meredith Eisenberg. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

Before they created Bananagrams, the high-speed word game now played in elementary school classrooms and pubs and from Bristol to Brazil, the Nathanson family invented other games to pass summer-vacation hours by the beach in Narragansett.
Guessing whether food and kitchen utensils dropped in a bucket of water would sink was one, but it didn’t have the portability or addictive potential of their anagram game, which the family took with them wherever they went.
And it didn’t have a catchy name like Bananagrams, a moniker that gave the word game not only its marketing punch, but the fruit theme and packaging concept.
“My dad said: ‘This anagram game is driving me bananas,” and we knew we had to put the whole thing in a banana shape,” said Banagrams President Rena Nathanson. “We never planned to do it. It just grew organically.”
Although its kitchen-table creation by three generations of Nathansons gave the game built-in market testing and authenticity, Bananagrams was not entirely an amateur affair.
Nathanson’s father, Abe, the driving, creative force behind the Bananagram family of games, was a graphic designer who founded a commercial-design studio, George Nathan Design, before he turned to creating games in his later years.
It was Abe Nathanson’s knowledge of manufacturing that resulted in a test batch of 50 Bananagrams games being made in 2005.
At the time, the younger Nathanson was also a graphic designer with two children trying to launch an interior-design business.
She took 25 of the games to London, where she lives part of the year, while 25 went to The World Store in North Kingstown.
On both sides of the pond, the games, packaged in banana-shaped, yellow pouches, flew off the shelves, prompting the Nathansons to have 500 of the games made. Those too sold rapidly and when Nathanson took Bananagrams to an international toy show in London, a business was born.
Nathanson quit her décor enterprise and the family opened an office on Allens Avenue in Providence, which they quickly painted yellow and made the headquarters of an international sales operation.
By 2011, Bananagrams had sold 6 million games and, in addition to the original game, now makes four others, including Appleletters, Pairs in Pears, Zip-It and Fruitominoes. In addition to fruit themes, the games share basic elements: a set of (usually lettered) tiles contained within a cloth sack and a simple set of printed rules.
The Bananagrams game does not require a pencil, paper or board and, unlike other games that involve letter tiles and a crossword format, a game takes only a few minutes to finish.
“I think it is the intergenerational nature of the game as well as the fluidity of it,” Nathanson said about why she thinks Bananagrams has become so popular. “We hit the perfect storm of people getting tired of electronic games on computers and phones and wanting to play with each other and kids.”
Another reason Bananagrams has spread so quickly is its appeal to teachers who see it as a language-building tool.
Appleletters and Pairs in Pears are specifically designed for younger players and Nathanson said one of her goals is to establish a national Bananagrams school tournament.
Although the original game serves as an antidote to the computer, Bananagrams has launched digital versions on Facebook and for the iPad and iPhone.
While the educational nature of Bananagrams makes it a natural in elementary schools, it may be more surprising how popular the game has become on college campuses and adult, social settings.
Right now Bananagrams is available in French, Spanish, German, Italian, Norwegian and Hebrew. It is sold in 31 countries and has become particularly popular in Germany, Korea and New Zealand.
In addition to working on the school tournament, Bananagrams this summer is releasing a jumbo version of the game, and a jumbo version of Zip-It, both designed to be played outdoors.
For the upcoming summer Olympics in England, Nathanson has created a special London 2012 Bananagrams.
And in the works is a Bananagrams dictionary, which would be a basic portable dictionary, yellow and “with a few twists,” Nathanson said.
Abe Nathanson died in 2010 at age 80, leaving his daughter as “top banana” at the company, a role she said she is still learning how to fill.
“My father was familiar with the manufacturing world and I am learning a lot about that fast,” Nathanson said. “The biggest challenge is production – trying to keep the costs down while delivering something of value.” •

COMPANY PROFILE
Bananagrams
OWNER: Rena Nathanson
TYPE OF BUSINESS: game creator and maker
LOCATION: 845 Allens Ave., Providence
EMPLOYEES: 23
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 2006
ANNUAL SALES: NA

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