The founder's elephant returns to the centre
In January 2020 Steiff opens its 140-year jubilee with a campaign that routes the anniversary through the brand's original product rather than through its most famous one. The Elefäntle, the small felt elephant pincushion that Margarete Steiff first sold from her workshop in Giengen an der Brenz in 1880, becomes the dedicated bildmarke for the jubilee year.1, 2 Every piece in the anniversary collection carries a circular stamp reading 140 Jahre Steiff with the elephant silhouette as its centrepiece, and the figure is also used across all communications surfaces, from the corporate landing page to the Spielwarenmesse trade booth in Nuremberg, where the jubilee year is publicly opened on 29 January 2020.1, 3, 4
The narrative the brand uses
The headline for the jubilee year is a single line attributed to Margarete Steiff, Wer an sich selbst glaubt, ist frei, which translates as those who believe in themselves are free.1, 2 The line repositions the company's origin story around the founder's biography. Margarete Steiff contracted polio as a child, used a wheelchair through adult life, and built the business from the workshop of her parental home with her sister Pauline and later her brother Fritz.2, 5, 6 The 140-year narrative routes those biographical facts through the brand's editorial surfaces and frames the original Elefäntle as the proof of the founder's argument rather than as a charming archive detail. The brand therefore replaces the standard anniversary structure, which usually retells the product timeline, with a personal narrative anchored on a single founder figure.
The Elefäntle as bildmarke
The dedicated 140 Jahre Steiff stamp uses a stylised silhouette of the original Elefäntle drawn from the company archive. The mark sits inside a circle and reads as a quality seal applied to every anniversary piece. The decision to use the elephant rather than the teddy bear, the brand's commercial centrepiece, is the strategic move of the jubilee. The bear stands for the brand's commercial trajectory from 1902 onward.2, 5 The elephant stands for the brand's existence before that trajectory began. Anchoring the jubilee on the elephant therefore allows the company to celebrate 140 years without subordinating the entire history to the teddy bear, and reserves the bear for the separate 120-year teddy anniversary that the brand celebrates two years later with the 2022 Peter Schmidt Group identity work.2
The 1,880-piece edition logic
Every piece in the Jubiläumskollektion is limited to 1,880 units worldwide, with the number a direct reference to the founding year 1880.7 The mechanic plugs the anniversary into the brand's existing trademark architecture. The Knopf im Ohr metal button developed in 1904 sits on each anniversary bear and animal in the left ear.2, 6 The 1953 ear tag colour code identifies the figures as limited edition pieces with the white tag and red lettering.8 The 1980 Replica programme supplies the manufacturing approach for the archive style pieces in the line.2 The result is an anniversary that does not require any new trademark mechanism. The 140-year identity therefore sits on the brand's existing infrastructure and uses the limited edition number as the only new variable.
The collection
The anniversary collection covers several categories of the catalogue. The Elefäntle itself returns in multiple sizes, in cream and white plush, including a 10 centimetre rattle version.1, 9 The Joseph Grizzly Bear, a substantial mohair figure, anchors the bear segment.7 The collection extends to a teddy bear range in the trademark cinnamon mohair, several animal pieces drawn from the regular catalogue redressed with the anniversary stamp, and a small number of replica style archive pieces.7 The pricing across the range mirrors the brand's normal price ladder, from the rattle Elefäntle in the gift segment to the mohair archive pieces in the collector segment. The anniversary stamp therefore travels across the entire catalogue rather than living in a single price tier.
Wir sind Steiff
The activation around the jubilee runs under the title Wir sind Steiff, which translates as We are Steiff.10 The campaign rolls out a sweepstake mechanic that invites consumers, employees and retailers to participate in the anniversary year through a series of online and in store actions.10 The format combines a visit driver for the Steiff Museum, opened in 2005 in Giengen an der Brenz, with a collector engagement programme run through the Steiff Club, founded in 1992.2, 10 The activation reads as a deliberately broad gesture, intended to thread the anniversary through every audience the brand maintains, rather than as a campaign optimised for a single segment.
The brand consequence
The 140-year jubilee restores the founder figure to the brand's commercial surface after several decades in which the teddy bear had carried the marketing argument almost on its own. The campaign supplies the brand's official answer to a question that heritage manufacturers in their fourteenth decade have to answer, namely how to celebrate longevity without making the founder figure feel decorative. Steiff's answer in 2020 is to put the founder's pincushion at the centre of the visual system and to attach a personal narrative to it, then to let the rest of the brand architecture run unchanged underneath. The decision sets up the next two years of communication. The 120-year teddy bear identity follows in May 2022, the Peter Schmidt Group bear head replaces the older bildmarke, and the brand returns to its commercial centrepiece.2 The 140-year campaign therefore functions as the founder pause before the brand pivots back to its bear.
Written with AI assistance, edited by a human. Find out more about our Use of AI.
1. Margarete Steiff GmbH, "140 Jahre Steiff" and its English version "140 Years Steiff", anniversary landing pages on steiff.com, consulted 25 September 2026, for the Elefäntle as the pincushion in the shape of a small fabric elephant with which Margarete Steiff began, and as the first toy sold from her workshop in 1880, for the special Elefäntle logo "140 Jahre Steiff" carried by the products of the 140 Years collection in the 2020 anniversary year, for the headline "Wer an sich selbst glaubt, ist frei", which the English page renders as "Those who believe in themselves are free", and for the Elefäntle mit Rassel, 10 cm, shown in the collection. The German page reads: "1880 bildet das erste als Spielzeug verkaufte Elefäntle aus der Werkstatt der Margarete Steiff weltweit die Geburtsstunde von Spieltieren aus Plüsch." Neither page describes the logo's circular form or mentions the Spielwarenmesse. https://www.steiff.com/de-de/i/140-jahre-steiff https://www.steiff.com/en/i/140-years-steiff
2. Margarete Steiff GmbH, "Die Steiff Story", company history, consulted 25 September 2026, for 1880 as the official founding date of the Steiff manufactory, with Margarete sewing the Elefäntle from a pattern for a small fabric elephant found in a fashion journal, for Giengen an der Brenz as her birthplace in 1847 and the home of the company museum, for the line "Wer an sich selbst glaubt, ist frei." credited on the page to Margarete Steiff, for her contracting polio at eighteen months ("Mit 18 Monate erkrankt sie an Kinderlähmung"), for Richard Steiff's Bär 55 PB of 1902, for the "Knopf im Ohr" developed ("entwickelt") in 1904 by Franz Steiff, for the limited replicas made for collectors from 1980, the year the first Steiff Museum opened in Giengen for the 100th anniversary, for the Steiff Club born on 1 April 1992, for the new Steiff Museum opened for the 125th anniversary in 2005, and for the teddy bear's 120 years celebrated in 2022. The page does not name Peter Schmidt Group or date the 2022 identity to May, and it does not say which ear carries the button. https://corporate.steiff.com/de/unternehmen/historie/
3. Messe.TV, "Steiff: 140 Jahre Jubiläum", filed under its Spielwarenmesse 2020 coverage and dated 12 February 2024 on the page, off whitelist and used for corroboration only, for Steiff presenting its 140 year jubilee at the Spielwarenmesse 2020 in Nuremberg. The piece does not describe the anniversary stamp on the stand or date Steiff's appearance. https://www.messe.tv/en/2020/spielwarenmesse/steiff-140-jahre
4. Spielwarenmesse eG, "The Spielwarenmesse Reveals the Trends for 2020", 15 October 2019, issued through PR Newswire, for the dates of the fair, Wednesday 29 January to Sunday 2 February 2020, together with Wikipedia, "Spielwarenmesse", consulted 25 September 2026, for the fair as the largest international trade fair for toys and games, held in Nuremberg. Neither names Steiff. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-spielwarenmesse-reveals-the-trends-for-2020-300937566.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spielwarenmesse
5. Wikipedia, "Margarete Steiff" and "Steiff", consulted 25 September 2026, for Margarete Steiff contracting polio as a child, which left both legs paralysed, for her working at times with her sisters, who had opened a women's tailor shop, for her brother Fritz taking samples of her toy animals to market, and for Richard Steiff's "Bear 55 PB" of 1902 as the world's first plush bear with movable arms and legs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarete_Steiff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steiff
6. Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt, "Margarete Steiff", consulted 25 September 2026, off whitelist and used for corroboration only, for her being bound to a wheelchair all her life after polio ("Zeit ihres Lebens ist sie an den Rollstuhl gebunden"), for her working at times in the dressmaking shop of her sisters Pauline and Marie, for the sewing room her father set up for her in the parental home, and for Franz Steiff designing the "Knopf im Ohr" in 1904 as the trademark for Steiff goods, with registration following in 1905: "Die Marke wird beim Patentamt angemeldet und 1905 eingetragen." The page does not describe Pauline as a partner in building the business. https://www.dpma.de/dpma/veroeffentlichungen/patentefrauen/margaretesteiff/index.html
7. Margarete Steiff GmbH, "Retailercatalogue 2020", German and English e-paper, 2020, for the elephant logo "140 Jahre Steiff" on the anniversary pieces, for the Filzelefäntle, the Joseph Grizzlybär and the Teddybär mit Filzelefäntle each issued as a limited edition of 1,880 pieces ("limitierte Auflage 1.880 Stück"), for Joseph's dark brown coat "aus feinstem Mohair", 35 cm, and his gold-plated "Knopf im Ohr", and for further pieces from the regular range carrying the anniversary logo, the blond Paddy teddy bear and a grey 22 cm Elefant. The catalogue gives no limitation for those two, does not say "worldwide", shows no cinnamon mohair teddy and designates no piece as a replica. https://info.steiff.de/info/steiff/ePaper/steiff_Retailercatalogue_2020_DE_EN/
8. Steiff, "Button in Ear Tags", consulted 25 September 2026, for the white ear tag with red lettering, fastened with a gold-plated button, that marks the Collectors category, as against the yellow ear tag with red lettering of the Friends range. The page does not date the system, records a changeover to new ear tags from January 2024 and does not refer to the anniversary pieces; the year 1953 rests on this journal's earlier verse on the Steiff ear tag. https://www.steiff.com/en-us/i/steiff-button-in-ear-tags
9. Petite Poupette, "Steiff - Elefäntle 10 cm in Creme", article 241147, and Schreiben Lesen Spielen, "Steiff® | Elefäntle | 25 cm", article 084119, retailer product pages, consulted 25 September 2026, off whitelist and used for corroboration only, for the anniversary Elefäntle in extra fine cream plush at 10 cm with a built in rattle and in white plush at 25 cm, both carrying the "140 Jahre Steiff" logo. https://www.poupette.de/products/steiff-steiff-elefaentle-10-creme-241147 https://schreiben-lesen-spielen.de/products/steiff-r-elefantle-25-cm
10. Steiff, "Wir sind Steiff" activation page on steiff.com, listed as the source for the activation's title, its sweepstake and its tie in with the Steiff Museum and the Steiff Club. No archived copy could be retrieved and no replacement was found on Steiff's own sites or the whitelist; page not reachable on 25 September 2026. https://www.steiff.com/de-de/i/wir-sind-steiff-aktion
