STREETSBORO, Ohio, May 18, 2007 - With durable products that emphasize value and utility over flashy marketing schemes, The Step2 Company manufactures toys and home & garden products that shine brightest when experienced. For 15 years, consumers have been writing and calling with stories of wholesome laughter, imaginative learning, long-lasting fun and overall good looks. This spring, those experiences can finally become public through Step2's partnership with PowerReviews to offer online toy reviews.

In late April 2007, Step2 decided to launch a web-based ratings system powered by PowerReviews.com allowing consumers to post individual reviews on products they own and use. The reviews portal is integrated directly into the Step2 website, where the embedded PowerReviews engine gathers and aggregates customer ratings to generate convenient online toy review summaries for at-a-glance research, while also providing the ability to read individual user reviews and ratings. Consumers will also be able to access online home & garden reviews as well.

"We are pleased to bring the PowerReviews customer review solution to Step2.com to help further strengthen their commitment to customer satisfaction, by helping their customers make the right purchase decision for them based on feedback from existing product owners," said Andy Chen, CEO of PowerReviews. "We are especially excited that the response from Step2's customers has been so strong, having reached over 1000 reviews in less than one month."

Hosting product reviews at the official company website was an almost unheard-of action for a manufacturer, but a true vote of confidence for the reputation the brand name has earned. As expected, Step2 has collected reviews on nearly every product currently available, with the majority focused on children's items such as play kitchens, swingsets, playhouses and riding toys. The 1000+ online home & garden and toy reviews collected during the three weeks since inception have been overwhelmingly positive, and highlight the durability and attractiveness that are the hallmark of Step2 products.

Step2 also plans to harness the information contained in these online toy reviews to shape the production and improvement of future products. Equipped with honest customer feedback, Step2 will be enabled to more effectively continue the ongoing effort to manufacture toys, children's furniture, and home & garden products that go A Step Beyond the competition in usefulness, attractiveness, and durability.

The privately held Step2® Company, LLC, established in 1991 and headquartered in Ohio, is the world's largest rotational molder of plastics. Step2 is a multinational manufacturer and marketer of children's play and furniture products with global distribution in the United States, Canada, Mexico and more than 70 other countries.

PowerReviews™ is an enterprise solutions company that provides customer reviews and social merchandising solutions to online retailers, driving higher conversion and increased purchase satisfaction. PowerReviews' unique PowerTags™ technology makes reviews more useful for shoppers throughout the shopping experience, empowering them to make more personalized and confident purchase decisions.

Links:
www.step2.com
www.powerreviews.com

Contact:
Dotti Foltz
Vice President, Marketing Communications
330-656-0440
dfoltz@step2.net

We love to hear stories about how Step2 has had a notable impact in your life, and we love even more to see pictures. Jessica from Bethesda, MD recently sent us one such success story.

Jessica lives in a neighborhood that has about 30 young children, but no sidewalks to create any type of safety boundary. Because her street connects two larger streets, they receive a large amount of shortcut traffic. So the neighborhood took action: to date, Jessica estimates that around 15 families on her road use KidAlert signs to caution motorists to slow down.

The results have been great, and the brightly-colored safety signs have even had some unforseen benefits, as Jessica notes, "It has brought our neighborhood together." You can see how one block of her street looks in this picture that she sent us:

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Jessica does say that the signs have helped slow down traffic. "The cars absolutely slow down now, with all the reminders, at least 40 in all!"

Last Friday, NPR's Morning Edition aired an interview with Susan Gregory Thomas, author of Buy Buy Baby. Ms. Thomas doesn't have a lot of nice things to say about the way many companies market their wares to children. She particularly takes to task the notion that electronic features and "educational toys" enhance or encourage early learning.

The interview is excellent, and we agree with what Ms. Thomas has to say. Many of her comments echo statements I've heard from Step2 product designers over the past fifteen years. I've never met Ms. Thomas, but I think she'd get along with us pretty well.

Step2 products typically focus on what we call the "open-ended" play experience. As Dotti Foltz, our vice president of marketing communications (and a former schoolteacher) says, "Our products allow the child to direct the play experience rather than having the toy direct the experience." We believe that's what a good toy should do.