STATE OF THE INDUSTRY JOE LAWANDUS
Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global Toys and Hardlines, Universal Brand Development
What are some of the criteria for how Universal Brand Development chooses its licensing partners? First and foremost, we look for great product. Word of mouth has become dramatically more powerful than traditional, ad-based marketing, and e-commerce continues to steal shares from brick-and-mortar retail. We know buzz with kids and influencers and having great product reviews are essential to driving toy success; this is one of the reasons we launched a toy inventor program a couple of years ago. Innovation is paramount and nurturing talent with fresh ideas is a big part of that equation. Great product wins. Period. How do you make sure your franchises stay fresh and exciting year after year through the products your licensing partners offer? We work to reinvent our franchises in a major way every year. This freshness comes from our “always-on” content strategy driven by new movies, animated series and specials, and YouTube content. Our teams work hard to bake new toy play patterns into these content drops and reinforce it via a new brand thematic that is highly visible in the content, with the product, on the package, and in our marketing. The September 2020 launch of the Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous animated series is a great example of content that gave us new dinosaurs, human characters, environments, and storylines — offering fans new ways to play with the Jurassic World brand. Our Jurassic World toy business grew by more than 50% globally last year. What trends will have the biggest impact on the toy industry in 2022 and beyond? It’s difficult to predict coming out of the last couple of years, but I think it’s a pretty safe bet that viewership fragmentation is here to stay. We’ll need to continue representing our franchises across all viewership platforms. That includes paying attention to the windowing of movie releases, getting our animated series on video-on-demand (VOD), and continuing to show up in a major way on YouTube. We believe in the continued growth of “kidult” toys and collectibles. With more than 100 years of rich movie-making history, our deep vault positions us really well here, whether it be the recent 35th anniversary of Back to the Future or this year’s 40th anniversary of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. What are your predictions for the state of toy retail in 2022? Retailers with the flexibility to break legacy spring-fall planogram rules will win. Kids want everything on demand. That includes consumer products based on a show or short they just watched. The windowing between content launch and consumer products availability will continue to shrink. Retailers and selling platforms that can demonstrate flexibility here will best capitalize on trend and demand.
ANDREW PERLMUTTER CEO, Funko
Funko recently joined the How2Recycle program. Why is it important to implement sustainability initiatives for your products and packaging? What is Funko currently doing to support the program and ensure it is minimizing its carbon footprint? We are very excited about continuing to invest in learning how we can make our products more eco-friendly. For fans that take Funko figures out of the box, we’ve entered into a partnership with How2Recycle to address recyclability of our packaging. Fans can now see the How2Recycle label on Pop! vinyl product, which informs them that the outer cardboard box can be recycled curbside in most communities across the U.S. We’ll have more to share on our ongoing environmental, social, and governance efforts in the coming months. Funko made its Macy’s Thanksgiving Day debut last year with the Star Wars Pop! Grogu balloon. How does this take your relationship with your fans to the next level? Why is it so important to connect with your fans in this way? We were ecstatic to participate in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade! It was a great collaboration between Macy’s, Lucasfilm, and Funko, and the balloon looked great floating down New York City. Participating on such a giant stage underscores the popularity of Funko’s lifestyle product lines. Our marketing and PR teams will continue pursuing big-stage brand opportunities like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Our fans are at the core of what we do, and they serve as the North Star for what’s trending in pop culture and if we decide to undertake new activations. How do you think the popularity of NFTs will impact the toy industry? For Funko, NFTs are a natural and obvious extension. Our products are highly collectible, and with the introduction of blockchain technology, we’ve been able to bring that excitement of collecting your favorite fandoms into the digital space. Importantly, we’ve done that while maintaining the fun and accessibility that has made our physical products so popular.
76 THE TOY BOOK | FEBRUARY 2022 | toybook.com
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