Big interview Funko’s recent run of acquisitions is what’s got the company to where it is today. In purchasing the likes of Land Flag and Underground Toys over the last two years, the firm has picked up not just a slew of new licenses, but positioned itself in new categories - those like homewares - that it simply didn’t have before. “The biggest things for us over the past 12 months have been category diversification, better distribution, more of a developed sales team and the purchase of our animation studio in Bath,” summarises Oddie in one fell swoop. It’s all about growth for this outfit, continues Oddie: “We are not slowing down, the idea is to put our foot to the floor and become operationally sound, which is a constant improvement process to get to where we need to be across EMEA.” Carrying the team through this is, of course its library of licenses and an almost overwhelming portfolio of product. It’s currently totalling at more than 7,000 items and is arguably its biggest asset when
12 | toy news | October 2018
“Our customer and retail channel targets are very broad. We are anything from a music store through to a gift store, a grocer, a toy store, or airport shops - we don’t really have a channel we are not interested in.” Andy Oddie, Funko Europe
it comes to building its business on a global scale. Who else can offer that, afterall? “There are nuances across all EMEA markets, and each has its own trading nuances and consumer preferences. They have their own barriers to entry and their
own benefits - it’s a very fragmented Europe of over 100 countries, but the Funko philosophy is that everyone is a fan of something, and that is definitely true, and our product and category diversification means that we are well placed to tap into those nuances and preferences on a global scale and work with retailers all across EMEA.” By the time this issue lands on desks, Oddie would have just returned from Russia Comic-Con, a region in which the Funko following is picking up at “an exciting pace.” The same, he tells ToyNews, can be said of the Middle East, South Africa and the Nordics. The pop culture explosion has gone global, and Funko has both the desire and means to be leading that from front. “We are working closely with retailers across EMEA to support them through social media and helping to curate professional looking Funko statements in store,” says Oddie. “Previously, our product was placed in an erratic way, but now we spend time pulling together art for retailers and approving sections in the way we would like it to look with a Funko statement; whether that’s in a Tesco, a Carrefour in Spain, KaDeWe in Germany, or HMV or The Entertainer in the UK.” The infiltration of the Funko offering into mainstream retailers and grocers has been an ongoing movement for the past number of years, and one that is in line with the ushering in of the current kidult trend and a mainstream passion for pop culture. However, it is perhaps this new partnership with the UK toy shop The Entertainer that is most affirming for the brand and its place within today’s market. “The Entertainer is a relatively new deal that came around the time we were exiting the relationship with Toys R Us,” Oddie explains. “We had been talking to Stuart Grant for many years about the hurdles we had to get through, which eventually, we managed to do.. “They are very excited with the results so far - they have invested a lot of money in presenting Funko appropriately in store, and it is bearing fruit. From the last discussion we had, Funko is at the forefront of a lot of its strategy at the moment.” But then, Funko is never far away from the forefront of many retailers’ strategies, fitting, as it does, into any mould; and that is through its diversity of IP.