Joe Lawandus, senior vice president and general manager of global toys at Universal Brand Development, talks about the company’s licensing partners and toy retail in 2022 in the Toy Book’s annual State of the Industry Q&A.
The Toy Book: What are some of the criteria for how Universal Brand Development chooses its licensing partners?
Joe Lawandus: First and foremost, we look for great product. Word of mouth has become dramatically more powerful than traditional, ad-based marketing, and e-commerce continues to steal shares from brick-and-mortar retail. We know buzz with kids and influencers and having great product reviews are essential to driving toy success; this is one of the reasons we launched a toy inventor program a couple of years ago. Innovation is paramount and nurturing talent with fresh ideas is a big part of that equation. Great product wins. Period.
TB: How do you make sure your franchises stay fresh and exciting year after year through the products your licensing partners offer?
JL: We work to reinvent our franchises in a major way every year. This freshness comes from our “always-on” content strategy driven by new movies, animated series and specials, and YouTube content. Our teams work hard to bake new toy play patterns into these content drops and reinforce it via a new brand thematic that is highly visible in the content, with the product, on the package, and in our marketing. The September 2020 launch of the Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous animated series is a great example of content that gave us new dinosaurs, human characters, environments, and storylines — offering fans new ways to play with the Jurassic World brand. Our Jurassic World toy business grew by more than 50% globally last year.
TB: What trends will have the biggest impact on the toy industry in 2022 and beyond?
JL: It’s difficult to predict coming out of the last couple of years, but I think it’s a pretty safe bet that viewership fragmentation is here to stay. We’ll need to continue representing our franchises across all viewership platforms. That includes paying attention to the windowing of movie releases, getting our animated series on video-on-demand (VOD), and continuing to show up in a major way on YouTube.
We believe in the continued growth of “kidult” toys and collectibles. With more than 100 years of rich movie-making history, our deep vault positions us really well here, whether it be the recent 35th anniversary of Back to the Future or this year’s 40th anniversary of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
TB: What are your predictions for the state of toy retail in 2022?
JL: Retailers with the flexibility to break legacy spring-fall planogram rules will win. Kids want everything on demand. That includes consumer products based on a show or short they just watched. The windowing between content launch and consumer products availability will continue to shrink. Retailers and selling platforms that can demonstrate flexibility here will best capitalize on trend and demand.
This article was originally published in the February 2022 edition of the Toy Book. Click here to read the full issue!
