Sunny Lauridsen, Senior Vice President of Brand Strategy and Licensing at Just Play discusses the company’s new acquisitions and the importance of refreshing Sesame Street in the preschool aisle in this extended edition of The Toy Book’s 2023 State of the Industry Q&A roundtable. Want more insight from the all-stars of the toy industry? Click here to explore this year’s lineup!
The Toy Book: Classic play patterns and evergreen brands continue to do big business. How will Just Play’s recent addition of Hasbro’s Easy Bake brand to its portfolio benefit retailers?
Sunny Lauridsen: Our focus at Just Play has always been to focus on great play patterns and deliver toys that enable play at a great value. With the addition of Easy Bake to our portfolio, we have the enviable opportunity to build upon one of today’s kids’ favorite play patterns — food play — with an already-established brand. We’re going to deliver more of the sometimes messy baking fun that parents and grandparents expect from the brand with quite a few unexpected twists.
We’ve all been spending a lot of time together as families over the past few years and the family unit is tighter than ever as a result. From board games to movies and toys, we, as parents, have had more opportunities than ever to introduce our kids to brands from our childhoods.
Evergreen brands that span across generations allow for unique shared experiences. Our Disney Doorables brand is one in which everyone can find their favorite characters and conjure up memories of their favorite movies from their childhood — or last week! The brand brings those 100 years of content together under one roof (pun intended). We just launched Series 9, which covers everything from classics like Mickey and Minnie to Pixar hits like Toy Story, Cars, and Turning Red. We also launched a fun new way to collect across the portfolio of Disney characters in an even smaller and squishier format called Doorables Squish’Alots.
TB: As a leader in the preschool category, what does the new partnership with Sesame Workshop’s Sesame Street mean to Just Play?
SL: We love the preschool space because play serves such an important role during this stage of a child’s life. We have an incredible portfolio of preschool brands that inspire imagination, enable world-building, celebrate diversity, support early education, and more.
Sesame Street is a brand that has not just existed for 50 years, but has impacted generations of families and children. We have a tremendous amount of respect for what Sesame Workshop has accomplished over its 50-year history and share its passion for helping kids grow smarter, stronger, and kinder.
We are honored to be a part of the future of Sesame as their master toy partner. It is a brand with a tremendous amount of heart and also a lot of humor. Our toys will deliver lots of giggles and ways to interact with all of the favorite characters from the Sesame Street neighborhood. We’re excited and can’t wait to see kids everywhere playing with our new Sesame Street toys.
A version of this Q&A was originally published in the 2023 edition of The BIG Toy Book. Click here to read the full issue! Want to receive The Toy Book in print? Click here for subscription options!
