Tara Hefter, president and general manager at Disguise (a division of Jakks Pacific), talks about the company’s contribution to Jakks’ growth, inclusive products, and licensing strategies in the Toy Book’s annual State of the Industry Q&A.
The Toy Book: How is Jakks Pacific’s Disguise costume division contributing to the company’s overall growth?
Tara Hefter: Disguise’s costume business is the most prolific of a number of Jakks businesses, which are not exactly toy, but toy-adjacent enough to benefit from being part of the larger Jakks. Our recent efforts to significantly expand our international distribution is a good example. Our constant focus on new licensing opportunities benefits us, the toy side, as well as the other Jakks consumer products businesses. To that end, we’re certainly driving sales growth in 2022 and beyond while always looking to work with our “toy friends” as we open new channels and customers, and they’re nice enough to do the same for us!
TB: How important is providing diverse, accessible, and inclusive products for kids, and how is Disguise doing so?
TH: Costumes closely follow apparel trends, which are very much focusing on diversity and inclusivity (D&I) these days. D&I initiatives are very important to Disguise’s business in order to stay relevant, but also because it is the right thing to do. We launched our first licensed wheelchair wraps in 2020 and have expanded the collection every year to include adaptive costumes and additional licenses. It has been wonderful to have nearly all retailers support our adaptive range, which is very important and special to Disguise. We are also looking at more and more gender-neutral product offerings, more varieties of characters, pride and progressive offerings, plus-size costumes, and other D&I initiatives.
TB: How important is licensing to your overall business strategy?
TH: Licensing comes first at Disguise as nearly all of our business is license-based. We’ve been in business for 35 years and 33 of those have been with licensed product. The team is adept in understanding licensing needs and how to build brand DNA into our product.
This article was originally published in the February 2022 edition of the Toy Book. Click here to read the full issue!
