Parents whose children have mastered all the questions posed by the Brain Quest edition aimed at their grade levels can take heart. Last month Workman began shipping copies of its revised, redesigned Brain Quest line of educational games. Promising to make youngsters "Smarter Than Ever!", the 12 updated editions, spanning My First Brain Quest for ages 2-3 to an installment for seventh graders, contain 50% new editorial material as well as new four-color art.
In addition to the preschool and grade-specific Brain Quest editions, Workman has also revised Brain Quest for the Car, the original edition of which sold 475,000 copies over nine printings. The entire Brain Quest series has total sales that would swell any publisher's brain: 14 million units since its 1992 debut.
The line's editorial changes, the result of collaboration between author Chris Welles Feder and a teacher advisory board, mark the first revision of Brain Quest since initial publication. Ellen Morgenstern, Workman's publicity
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director, asserts that the revisions "make the program more challenging and create a better balance between questions that kids should know the answer to and those that are a reach for them."
Kids will soon be able to reach for Brain Quest in yet another format. Workman recently signed an agreement with IBM to create tie-in software products. Due in the fall are six CD-ROMS based on the curriculum-based Brain Quest editions for grades 1-6, featuring entirely new questions and answers. Incorporating the Brain Quest question-and-answer format and art, the discs will, according to Morgenstern, "look and feel like Brain Quest in many ways, but they will have many additional graphic elements and a story line, as well as options for children to play the game by themselves or in teams."
Workman will provide the editorial content for the CD-ROMS, which are designed for home and school use. The agreement with IBM includes additional software products that will follow, as well as an Internet component that, in the future, will allow kids to hold Brain Quest competitions on the Web.
The publisher is launching its new Brain Quest editions with a $1 million marketing campaign, comprised of a $400,000 national advertising budget (including co-op), point-of-purchase displays and promotional kits for retailers. Starting in June and continuing throughout the summer, Julia Phelps, chairperson of the Brain Quest teacher advisory board, will tour 20 cities promoting the revamped games.
Also making its way across the country for 12 weeks this summer will be a brightly painted bus Workman has commissioned to help alert parents and kids to the spruced-up Brain Quest editions. Though its itinerary is still being worked out, the bus will visit bookstores, where the publisher hopes that retailers will host Brain Quest challenges. On hand to help them will be the bus's passengers, the colorfully costumed characters of Ryan Lion, Amanda Panda and BQ the bull terrier, the mascots featured in the Brain Quest art. All of which adds up to a smart start to a bright new venture.
