Company Profile
Curiously
creative T
oy World arrived at the Curious Universe head office in Bath on 31st October feeling a little underdressed. With an appointment to meet and interview John Styring, we were surprised to be greeted by Beetlejuice, resplendent in black and white stripes from head to toe and a silky black tie. His white and black face paint was very impressive, which he admitted was applied by one of his talented staff. John clearly isn’t a man to do anything by halves. Curious Universe emerged after his previous company, Igloo Books, was sold in 2014. Initially choosing to continue to utilise his expertise in the book market, John was very quickly approached by Hinkler, based in Australia, about joining forces on a wider offering. Within six months, they sealed the deal and Curious Universe was born. Now, with a wide offering of toys, craft, books and stationery, between 60-70% of products are designed and created in the UK and the rest in Australia. John says: “It’s worked out well with both teams
Curious Universe
As Curious Universe prepares to expand on its new toy brands Crystalverse and Cutesville, Toy World’s Marianna Casal sat down with CEO John Styring and Head of Business Development David Martin to hear more about their vision for these products, as well as the company’s phenomenal growth in just five years.
complementing each other. The Australian team is amazing at the adult products while our strength lies in the kids side of the business. Since forming, we’ve grown at a very rapid rate, which I’m very proud of. We now have just short of 100 staff in the UK across sales, design, editorial, manufacturing and operation and logistics. When we come up with a list of products, within 12-18 months they are ready to be dropped into the market.” Curious Universe has four divisions within the business which John refers to as ‘worlds’: Explore, for books; Play, for toys; Create, for arts & crafts and Imagine, for stationery. Although there is of course some overlap between worlds, arts & crafts is the sector which dominates - about 50% of its products fall into this category. The company is now putting more investment into its toys offering, which John predicts to be the fastest growing area of the business over the next few years. To date, Curious Universe has released about 620 new products each year across its different worlds and currently has
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about 2,000 products in its portfolio. As part of this new focus on toys, John brought in some extra manpower with vast experience in the toy sector: David Martin as head of Business Development, Mark Murray as head of Mass Market, and Mark Burge as group sales d irector who has been on board since the company’s inception. All three will be representing Curious Universe at the London Toy Fair and David and Mark Murray will be at Spielwarenmesse in Nuremberg. David joined Curious Universe in May this year, having dedicated his time to independent consulting projects during the Covid pandemic. After spending 18 years at Crayola as part of the senior management team, David continued his career as GM at InspirationWorks (KD Group) and more recently, has held senior commercial positions at Funrise and extended his marketing experience as part of children’s market research companies. David is enthusiastic about his new role: “I am delighted
