Company Profile
Jumbo
Piece by piece Toy World’s Rachael Simpson visited Jumbo to interview managing director Stewart Middleton and senior marketing executive Steven Russell on the success of the Wasgij brand, and the company’s growth in the adult puzzles market. Wasgij is a unique concept, where puzzlers use both their imagination and the clues provided to piece together a completely different picture than the one on the box. How much of an impact does social media have on brand awareness? Steven: We use social media to give our fans sneak peeks, for monthly competitions, revealing offers and asking for ideas. It’s a very responsive marketing tool. If we ask fans for theme suggestions we get hundreds, if not thousands of replies. We had an idea of who the typical puzzler is, but through social media and various promotions we have come to realise that Wasgij draws in a younger demographic as well as traditional puzzle buyers, because of the humour.
How has the Wasgij brand developed over the years? Stewart Middleton
Jumbo’s Wasgij brand has been No. 1 in the UK for 10 consecutive years – how has Jumbo maintained the popularity of the brand for so long? Steven: Ten consecutive years at No. 1 is incredible. We work closely with our artists, and also with puzzlers, to gain feedback on the themes and illustrations they want. In recent years, we have released five Wasgij puzzles a year, but as it’s the brand’s 20th anniversary this year we have decided to release 10. A lot of work goes into ensuring that the image fits the humour, that it contains the right level of brain-teasing, and that it’s a popular theme to keep fans coming back. In January each year we release our new Mystery, Destiny and Imagine…? Puzzles and in June the Original, Christmas and Back to…? puzzles, and retailers tell us that it’s the first thing they buy. Stewart: Over the years a collector fanbase has emerged with Wasgij and this continues to grow. Limited releases really appeal to collectors. This year we brought out the first edition Wasgij puzzles, from the initial range going back 20 years, in new Retro styled packaging This gives the people who started collecting more recently the chance to get the original ones - to start from the beginning. Steven: We only tend to keep the previous five years’ puzzles in stock, which means the real hardcore fans can add them to their collections where previously they may have missed out. Fans can offer these as gifts to friends and family to get them involved in Wasgij too.
Steven: It was first launched in 1997 and the Original concept remained for two years. We then created the Mystery and Destiny concepts, and slowly introduced them into the range. Feedback was good, so three or four years ago we introduced the Imagine…? concept, and then the Back to…? concept last year. We are seeing how far we can extend the brand, and exploring whether our fans will still buy into the new concepts. However, the Original concept is still by far the most popular. Stewart: There are some people who only buy a particular concept – Mystery, for example, because they like the fact that they can see what happens next in the image on the box. There is a core group of people who will buy all the puzzle concepts, but conversely there are those who will only collect certain themes within the range. For the Falcon brand we use lots of different artists, but we don’t for Wasgij to maintain the consistent level of humour. We do keep the themes as up to date as possible – we did a puzzle based on a British Bake Off competition which performed really well – but the humour is the same as it was 20 years ago.
What’s next for Wasgij? Steven: Without giving too much away, we are looking at introducing more ‘fan favourites’ throughout the year. Having seen the popularity of the brand, and with it being the 20th anniversary this year, we are going back to basics and revisiting where it all started. There will be two more Original puzzles next year, giving the fans new options within our most popular concept, and offering retailers more proven sellers too.
Toy World 10
Do you test shortlisted designs on puzzlers or do you simply pick what you feel is the strongest concept and run with it? Stewart: It varies. We have a committee of people involved in this, some from areas like marketing and product development, and others who are puzzlers that work for the company. There are also external customers who advise us who are very close to our target consumer base. Sometimes we come up with a concept but when the artist has done their bit we realise it doesn’t work. Great ideas don’t always translate well for Wasgij puzzles, as it’s easy to lose the mature humour level we aim for. We can always style a concept for a younger age group, but often the younger puzzlers enjoy Wasgij because of that adult level of humour, so we don’t want to lose it during design. Steven: A couple of weeks ago we had a meeting with our brand manager, reviewing artwork for a design which showed real promise, and during the meeting we realised it simply wasn’t going to translate into puzzle form. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes to develop the concepts before they even go to the artist, and the artists know the brand so well that they sometimes make changes themselves. Our artists do a great job of producing strong pieces which sell well.
Steven Russell