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Back in 1996, when he first visited a Zany Brainy store, Keith
Spurgeon had already spent 17 years in retailing, a decade of
that in toy retailing. But nothing he had experienced before prepared
him for what he glimpsed within that Schaumburg, Illinois, store.
“It was a wow,” recalled Spurgeon, ’79. “I saw children all over
the store, laughing and smiling and playing with toys. I saw associates
enjoying interacting with customers. I talked with adults who
said the store has had an important part in their families’ lives.
It was a magical retail experience.”
Shortly thereafter, Spurgeon joined the specialty toy retail chain,
serving first as president and CEO and, since last year, as chairman
and CEO. Being part of Zany Brainy has only heightened his enthusiasm
for the company and its mission.
“We believe we’re providing an important asset to the communities
where we have stores,” he said. “We believe we’re doing great
things for kids. And that motivates all of us. It elevates it
beyond just a job.”
Spurgeon’s zest for his work is based in large part on the fact
that he sees Zany Brainy as anything but a typical toy retailer.
The company “edits” the vast selection of toys in the marketplace,
offering only items designed to stimulate children’s creativity.
Rather than being influenced by the latest movies, for example,
many of the toys the stores sell derive from children’s books,
like Marc Brown’s Arthur series and Winnie-the-Pooh. A sizeable
selection of such traditional items as prisms, gyroscopes, and
kaleidoscopes is also offered, and it’s here that Spurgeon finds
his own favorites.
“I have a new favorite about every week,” he said with a laugh,
adding that the most recent toy to capture his fancy is the Alien
Orbiter, a wind-powered combination top and gyroscope.
Zany Brainy further differentiates itself from competitors like
Toys R Us and Noodle Kidoodle through a program called Free Fun
Every Day, a daily serving of in-store craft projects, story readings,
author appearances, and musical performances for children.
This distinctive approach to selling toys has won Zany Brainy
the loyalty of both kids and parents and has helped accelerate
the chain’s expansion. The company’s initial public offering took
place in June, with proceeds going to pay off debt, fund expansion,
finance the relocation of a distribution center and further the
company’s e-commerce initiative.
On Spurgeon’s watch, the chain has grown from 35 to 103 stores,
and the merchandise assortment has been fine-tuned to deliver
greater profitability. Spurgeon also reworked Free Fun Every Day
to incorporate more input from sponsors like National Geographic
Society and World Wildlife Fund and launched a product development
initiative in which Zany Brainy teams with toy manufacturers to
develop products specifically for the company’s stores.
Spurgeon’s success with Zany Brainy is not surprising, because
he charted a course for retailing from the beginning of his career.
After seven years in store operations, merchandising, and sales
and marketing with Melrose Park, Illinoisbased Jewel Foods, he
joined Paramus, New Jerseybased Toys R Us in 1986. By 1991, he
was overseeing the company’s Southeast Asia operations, and he
ultimately led the chain’s expansion into Australia. Spurgeon,
his wife, and their two children, now 9 and 13, left Australia
for the United States when Spurgeon took the helm of Zany Brainy,
which is based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
Spurgeon’s long career in and love for retailing stems in part
from what he terms its immediacy. “You’re graded every time a
customer comes through the door. That kind of challenge and reward
is very exciting,” he said.
And while it may seem a very different industry, grocery retailing
experience helped enormously in his current role, he said. One
of the things he enjoyed at Jewel Foods was what he called the
company’s obsession with listening to customers and providing
the products and services they wanted. “That was good training
for Zany Brainy,” he said. “We have the same obsession with responding
to our customers and being good neighbors in our community.”
As he leads the expansion of Zany Brainy in stores and online,
Spurgeon believes the biggest challenge will be to keep the product
offering new, fresh, and unique. “Our customers come to us with
high expectations not only for seeing products that are different,
but also products that are always changing,” he said. “They see
us as first, and that means we have to be first with new products.”–Jeffrey Steele
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