Quick Links As we head into the 2024 holiday season, retail sales are about make or break the targets of toy companies worldwide. For Jazwares, named one of the 2024 TIME100 Most Influential Companies, they're feeling bullish about future prospects according to Daren Brandman, Managing Director of Jazwares Canada.
ScreenRant's Rob Keyes: It's funny you say that because Max gave me a private tour of the Celebration booth. He was geeking out about every character and variant of all the Star Wars ships. I brought this here just to show you. It's one of the Republic Gunships, but with a custom paint job. And Max was telling me the inspirations for every little character design and how they made this one happen. And for everything that was there.
There are many IP in the Jazwares portfolio now. Are some of those from other acquisitions, or is it mainly just through direct license agreements with the IP owners? Daren Brandman: Yeah, absolutely! FAN EXPO for us is truly a fan event, which we absolutely love. We're not there to sell anything. We're there to show the"Summer of Squish." And it's very much an activation. Our first time participating in FAN EXPO was three years ago when we really were just starting to open up the office here. We had Cam the Cat have a presence as literally our mascot walking around, and he just held so much attention across the board.
Daren Brandman: It's a tough question to answer because sometimes it's hard to know the ROI you're getting on there. You know, we do look at impressions, of course. I think media buys and digital media campaigns are always going to be huge, especially with launching something new. Every brand is a little bit different in how we go about it. Fan Expo, it's so personal. And we have so many influencers coming through as well.
Daren Brandman: I'm not sure. Off the top of my head, I think we do participate in most of the Comic Cons, so the major ones, but I'm not sure. Daren Brandman: I think the industry as a whole will continue to have modest growth somewhere in the range of 1-2%, 1-3%, something along those lines. We really see, if you look at the category breakdown within the toy industry, there are a lot of fluctuations. We see dolls down a lot, whereas plush is up significantly. Obviously, we've been driving a lot of that plush business, so we've certainly been the benefactor of that.
Daren Brandman: Right, with a much bigger budget attached to it. And you know, when retailers hear we're getting behind stuff like that... One thing retailers know, and not just retailers, but collectors know about the Jazwares business, is we crush it when it comes to figures. Our figures, and the details we do at the price points we do them at are phenomenal. I think I could say this.
"Squishmallows has really developed to be more than just just a plush brand. It's really evolved into this lifestyle brand"