This auction is for a very rare collection of Etch A Sketch marketing materials connected to its "Etch A Sketch for Political Metaphor 2012" campaign entitled "Shake It Up, America!". 

The background is that on Wednesday, March 21, 2012, after a resounding win for Mitt Romney in the Illinois Republican primary and a major endorsement from Jeb Bush, a senior campaign aide for Romney, Eric Fehrnstrom, said in a CNN interview, "I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's like Etch A Sketch. You can shake it it up, and we start all over again." Etch A Sketch, a toy for children, was thrown into the year's presidential campaign and covered on all the news shows, newspapers, online and more. Etch A Sketch had to make a decision as to what to do in response. There was a three-prong fork in the road for them. Ignore it and hope it goes away. Deny or downplay any connection. Or try to make lemonade out of the lemons dealt them. They chose the last path and embraced it in a big way.

Etch A Sketch crafted a promotional campaign centered around the tag line "Shake It Up, America!" with the goal to make Etch A Sketch the political metaphor for 2012. The mission statement was captured here, "We stand firmly behind our proclamation that 'We have a left knob and a right knob for each political party.' And '... when both work together, we can do loop de loops.' We're especially serious about the loop de loops part. We call on you to shake it up, America! Exercise your freedom of self-expression by voting on Election Day, and drawing on your Etch A Sketch every day. Our political neutrality is unflappable. And our stance on self-expression is unshakeable"

This auction is for press kit materials that were created to support the campaign that did not have any public distribution. The cornerstone items are special red and blue (to represent the two political parties) Etch A Sketch toys with static clings on them reading "Draw Your Own Conclusions" with an elephant and donkey playing tug-of-war on the front lawn of The White House. These Etch A Sketch toys have red and blue stars on the two (right and left) knobs. They are in special packaging with the mission statement on the back side and "Easter eggs" throughout. It also included a URL to ShakeItUpAmerica.net, which simply connected folks to their state's voter registration page to encourage them to vote. Also included are a lawn sign (one side red and one side blue), a bumper sticker, a t-shirt, color print-outs of four online ads, the press release from Ohio Art (Etch A Sketch's owner) on the campaign, media coverage and more.

This campaign was a certified success. Media loved it. Parents and children loved it. Etch A Sketch retailers loved it (and sold a record number of Etch A Sketch toys). Time Magazine placed it as number two in its list of "Top 10 Everything of 2012" and ranked it number nine in its "A History of the Campaign in 100 Objects." And it won a Silver Award in the highly regarded EFFIE (short for effectiveness) advertising award competition.

These items have never been used and stored since 2012. They are in wonderful condition, with the lawn sign showing a couple of marks from shelf wear. Please see the photographs for complete details. Happy bidding!