Company Profile - Magna-Tiles

Building on success

Christian Petersen, director of International Markets, speaks to Toy World’s Caroline Tonks on the brand’s newest launches and growing campaigns, and how it is building its international structure to gain global awareness.

Off the back of the successful launch of its Build On global campaign in 2024, Magna-Tiles is continuing to go from strength to strength in 2025, with its core US business already up almost 40%.

Composed of three pillars – promoting Meaningful Play, connecting with community and building a boundless future – the Build On campaign has been a part of not only raising brand awareness, but also highlighting the new product offerings Magna-Tiles launched last year. Christian Petersen explains: “The toy market is very much skewed, naturally, towards the end of the year – maybe even more so for Magna-Tiles and the offerings in our catalogue. The Build On campaign put us in a place where we now show up at more gifting occasions earlier in the year. This increase in awareness and being more present for gifting occasions, heavily led by our new Travel Set and lower price points, has given us an out of the park start to the year, with an almost 40% increase in our consumer sales so far.”

Magna-Tiles is heavily focused on product innovation, and Christian is confident that the Build On campaign will continue thriving throughout this year as the brand launches more new products. From 2025’s latest releases, he highlights four new ranges – Community Heroes, Rail Racers, Animal Sets and a new Travel Set.

Community Heroes will be police and fire themed, and will see the launch of a police station, fire station, police patrol and fire truck. Rail Racers, which received high praise at New York Toy Fair, is a ball run with child-led, open-ended play at its core. It’s easy to put together with no instructions, so children can build with it any way they want. What sets this new launch apart is that it was created in collaboration with a fan; a father who wanted to make something for his son that he couldn’t find elsewhere in the market.

Magna-Tiles’ new Animal Sets tap into pre-schoolers’ love for animals, while still incorporating the building experience. These sets will be a part of the brand’s offerings that are at a lower price point and include a hamster ball, doghouse and cat tree. On top of that, Magna-Tiles is adding onto its 2024 and beginning of 2025 success story – the Travel Set. Bigger than the previous iteration, the new Travel Set is going up from 26-pieces to 55-pieces.

Christian is very excited for the year to come and has great expectations for how the new products will be perceived in the market. “I’ve been with the company since September 2023, and the new products and product development that the company has gone through in this relatively short period of time is just fantastic.”

Magna-Tiles has been building and increasing its international structure to gain more global awareness and support its partners. This is a very important part of its current business proposition. Christian explains: “We are a US-based company and that has always been our focus and where the  majority of our business has been. But there’s a tremendous potential in the international markets, from Asia, Australia and Europe to Latin America and Africa – basically anywhere that is not North America. I don’t expect us to be everywhere overnight, but we have seen a tremendous increase in the markets that we’re present in.”

Other than the determined growth the company is already showing, another of Christian’s goals this year is to build on the company’s impact internationally, something he believes is well on its way. “We’re opening a structure with resources, including myself, in Denmark, which will be our second international office after Hong Kong for our supply chain and negotiations with factories. We will have commercial resources, and we have the office space ready with the company up and running.” There will also be marketing and operational resources, and Magna-Tiles will use these elements to enter and develop international markets, with all the necessary support in place and ready to go.

“We all have great expectations for our international markets. If we were to look at some of the markets we’re working with, like the UK, Australia, the Nordics, Netherlands, Poland, Turkey and Slovakia, it’s amazing what we’ve done in the last year and a half. It’s going really well, and we will continue to add resources to focus on and support these markets.”

Retailers which work with Magna-Tiles can expect a partnership. “We are always focused on bringing value to the table, for our partners, retailers and consumers, and there are many ways in which you can bring value,” says Christian. “You can be a big brand that increases foot traffic, a brand that offers a high margin or even a brand that offers a high turn on inventory. With a partnership, we will always ensure retailers carry an assortment that will be successful for them and for consumers. It’s really important to mesh those two things.”

The brand will continue with modifications for an even bigger and better Build On campaign for the rest of the year.  According to Christian, there are many ways of defining Meaningful Play, but for him, the most important elements are educational and developmental, classic play rather than trends. “Classic play patterns, the way children play, haven’t really changed,” he says. “Meaningful Play is evergreen, educational, developmental play, and importantly, it is open-ended play. When you watch children engaging in open-ended play, there is no limit to the creativity possibilities. You can give them directions of what to start and which way they should go, but in my opinion, that already limits creativity a bit. It’s important to inspire but not tell children exactly what to build. Let them find it in themselves.”

The Construction category is a saturated marketplace, but Christian believes that specific elements of the Magna-Tiles brand put it ahead of its competition, starting with the quality of its products. The tiles have lattice insides as well as rivets that make them very difficult to break or come apart. Christian explains: “It doesn’t matter what brand or what type of toy you produce, there are always going to be cheap alternatives that look a lot like the products you’re making, but some are not necessarily the quality that the original toy companies would make. In the Construction category, with magnets, is not an area in which you want to cut corners.

Christian concludes: “Play value is everything. Children won’t touch it otherwise – and they shouldn’t. With lower price points more popular in the market for first time buyers, it is a fantastic opportunity for us to introduce these Meaningful Play experiences to children. Children need these experiences. They need to be inspired. They need to develop. And I think they’re going to love what we have to offer.”