SA NTA
CLARITA - With triplets at home, Laureen Mgrdichian knows a moment's
peace for a mother feels like a million dollars. As a businesswoman,
she hopes the feeling translates into that kind of cash.
The stay-at-home mom owns Calm Baby Inc., an educational-video
firm that aims to soothe and stimulate infants. While working as a
category manager for Universal Studios Home Video, she watched the
sector develop into what industry experts say is now a
several-hundred-million-dollar annual industry.
She developed the business along with her sister-in-law Ann
Abajian while their children were infants, and they recently started
selling the half-hour video. They're betting other moms will be
willing to pay for educating their kids - and a little free time.
Abajian recently relocated to Fresno but still serves as the
company's vice president.
Developing a video for infants is difficult, said Bruce Kluger, a
home-video critic for Parenting Magazine. Infants can't fill out
forms or critique the product. And if they don't like it, they can
get a little unruly, too.
"A 3-month-old doesn't focus-group very well,' he said. "Instead
of relying on verbal communications, you've got a lot of nonverbal
cues to look at. Any parent knows that kids that age take no
prisoners: When they need pacification, they ain't kiddin'.'
Mgrdichian and Abajian conceived the project two years ago as
they learned the ropes of child rearing firsthand. Neither wanted to
use the television as a baby sitter, but they found that the allure
of TV was a strong soother of their kids' - and their own - rattled
nerves.
Not wanting to just pop anything in the VCR, they decided to try
producing a film on their own.
"Your kid could be watching all day long if you let them, but not
all the shows are appropriate for the young set,' Mgrdichian said.
"You want things that will be good for them and give them a love for
nature and music.'
Many of her high-profile competitors take this approach, offering
education alongside their pacification. Disney's Baby Einstein line
boasts titles such as "Baby Beethoven' and "Baby Bach.' Rival Warner
Home Video distributes the Baby Genius line, which offers "Mozart
and Friends.'
"It starts the gears in motion for them to start learning more
difficult things later on,' said Ewa Martinoff, vice president of
marketing of family entertainment for Warner Home Video. "This is
more development than entertaining. When you're talking about
infants that age, they're just observing the world. These images
give them clear, short images to focus on, which is very important
for them.'
And if parents want their kids to grow into little maestros and
artists, toy experts say this isn't a bad way to nudge them in the
right direction.
"There was some preliminary research to say classical music was
helpful to children to stimulate their mental development,' said
Stevanne Auerbach, who runs the children's products review site
DrToy.com. "I don't think there's any solid research that supports
that; however, you can make an inference that the sound is better to
the child's ear than hip-hop. At an early age, this is the time to
introduce them to cultural ideas, when they'll accept them.'
As the video's name implies, Calm Baby tries to soothe the viewer
first, then ease the education in once the young minds get settled.
Through much of the half-hour run time, the camera focuses on
streams of water, babbling softly under the nursery rhymes and
classical music.
"Almost all the infant videos out there claim to make your baby
smarter,' Abajian said. "That's attractive to parents because they
want their baby to be smart, but they won't be smart unless they're
cool and calm first. Once they're relaxed, then you can focus on
teaching them.'
Though the video, developed with their entertainment-savvy
husbands, was initially intended for their own use, they decided to
market it to other mothers.
They invested more than $20,000 for production and marketing
costs, then started selling their video through Amazon.com and their
own Web site, CalmBaby.TV. It's available at a handful of retail
sites, too.
Since the business is in its infancy, they've yet to see a
profit, but hope that the upcoming holiday season, combined with a
launch on DVD, will bring their bottom line positive.
Though their one title won't be going head to head with the
giants anytime soon, support has been building. Most recently, it
won a coveted favorable review from Kluger in Parenting magazine's
August issue.
"They really did their research to see what children at that age
are placated and pacified by, and then put the images to work,'
Kluger said. "With a baby having the standard witching hour
meltdown, you can just pop this in and watch it work.'
And though the sisters-in-law don't advocate substituting the
video for quality interaction, they do think it offers a good start
for kids. Though Mgrdichian's children are still several years away
from starting school, she wants to see them heading down the right
path to get there.
"Time's ticking,' she said. "If they're sitting, they can do
something to develop their brains.'
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