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Celebriducks
Make a Splash
It was
the weird kind of "what-if" most people would never stop to
ponder: What if you took a standard rubber duckie and made it look like
a celebrity?
When a family friend threw out the idea, Rebecca Wolfe
(B.A., Industrial Design, '99) and her father, Craig, decided
to take it seriously. He called manufacturers. Rebecca, then a sophomore
at State, grabbed her sketch pad and went to work on the design.
Betty Boop, the first Celebriduck, flew off shelves in Bay Area boutiques.
Rebecca followed with duck versions of William Shakespeare and Groucho
Marx. Two years ago, when the Philadelphia 76ers asked for Celebriducks
of star guard Allen Iverson for a game give-away, orders followed from
the Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, and New York Yankees.
Rebecca, now a full-time Celebriducks employee, works her tail feathers
off at her father's company headquarters in San Rafael. After
sketching a duck from every angle, she approves each prototype before
it hits the assembly line.
"We'll sculpt and re-sculpt until we feel it looks just
like the person." That is, with the addition of a duck body and
beak.
The father-daughter duo claim a jump in gross sales from $300,000 in
2001 to $3 million in 2002.
How does Rebecca explain the success? "These ducks are so cute,"
she says. "How could people not like them?"
For more information: www.celebriducks.com
 
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