Top

Jennifer Telfer

February 10, 2012 by · Comments Off on Jennifer Telfer 

Jennifer Telfer, Pillow Pets are an American brand of stuffed toys designed for children. Ordinary Pillow Pets are made of chenille and have Velcro straps that allow them to be changed from a decorated pillow into a stuffed animal. When invented by Jennifer Telfer in 2003, they were the first folding stuffed toys.

They first gained success after the Christmas season of 2003, the period that Telfer personally sold the toys. Six years later, they would become more successful through television advertising. Because of their popularity, other companies have manufactured look-alike stuffed toys. The same popularity has allowed Pillow Pets to be used for charitable fund raising.

In 2003, Jennifer Telfer was living in San Diego, California with her husband, Clint, and two sons. Telfer stated in an interview with CNBC of her oldest son, then seven: “There was one particular animal that he liked to sleep with. And he slept with it so much that he started to flatten it out, and that’s where I came with the concept that ‘What if we can make stuffed animals functional?'” She decided on a combination of a pillow and a stuffed animal as the concept for Pillow Pets.

Telfer and her husband proposed a meeting with a plush manufacturer at a tradeshow in Las Vegas, and decided to wholesale the toys themselves through their company, CJ Products (CJ is a combination of their first initials). Following the meeting, the Telfers were prepared to sell the first toys.

Bottom