TOTAL LICENSING
Fortune favors the bold! An Interview with Isaac Larian, founder and Chairman, MGA Entertainment
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After 41 years in the toy business, MGA owner Isaac Larian knows a thing or two about what children want. Total Licensing visited Isaac at his new state-of-the-art facility in Chatsworth, California to find out more.
Isaac Larian is an extraordinary man. Now a proud father and grandfather, Larian arrived in the United States from Iran in 1971 with, essentially, nothing. Today he owns the largest private toy company in the USA and has over 1500 employees worldwide. As controller of his own destiny, Larian isn’t fond of corporate-speak. Refreshingly, he says things as he finds them. And that includes some of the issues facing today’s toy industry. “The toy industry is getting tougher and tougher,” he explained. “Losing Toys R Us was a massive blow – particularly to year-round sales. The big merchants now are only really interested in Christmas and Holiday sales. It means that retail is getting more and more difficult.” Clearly, Isaac recognises how difficult it is for retailers to take risks. But in his eyes, that creates the opportunity. “When we launched LOL Surprise, people honestly thought we were crazy,” he explained. But how wrong they were. The miniature doll phenomenon became wildly successful – one of the hottest toys around with sales of $5.5 billion last year.
And Larian believes that whilst the demise of Toys R Us was a blow to the industry, toy makers cannot blame everything on it. As he explained ahead of announcing an earnings report in Spring last year, “Lately, it is fashionable by most publicly traded toy companies to blame the demise of Toys R Us for everything. Thankfully, due to our continued innovations, our worldwide shipping was up 46 percent for the first quarter.” Isaac believes that innovation is the key to his success. “I figured out that the only solution is to produce great new innovative products – if you do this, retailers have no choice but to buy them.” Without a doubt, MGA takes risks – something that, as a private company, they are more able to do than some of their publicly-quoted competitors although, as Isaac explained, some of these companies are now having to rethink their strategies. “The toy business is one of the toughest businesses to be in,” continued Isaac. “To succeed, you really need to look at products through the eyes of a child.” LOL Surprise is a great example of this. “I always want to do things differently,” continued Isaac. “When we first came up with LOL Surprise, I took it to Walmart and the buyer said no. I then took it to Target and, again, the buyer said no. They were scared of taking on something different. Fortunately, I knew the buyers’ boss who recognised the opportunity. Now, the toy is an immense success and we also have 650 licenses around the world.” Licensing is hugely important to MGA’s success. “But the toys always come first,” explained Isaac. LOL Surprise has been an astonishing hit right around the world – it leads
