Surge Licensing has officially signed global toy manufacturer TOMY to be toy partner for the A Little SPOT book series by Diane Alber.
The series is a leader in social emotional learning (SEL) content for parents, teachers, and kids alike. Featuring brightly colored characters, the books address topics such as kindness, empathy, honesty, diversity, inclusion, and reading. Maintaining the essence of the A Little SPOT series, TOMY will develop a broad range of branded SEL-focused products. The collection will include plush toys with a range of added technological and plastic features. TOMY will also distribute the Amazon best-selling book plus plush box sets, to brick-and-mortar chains globally.
“Diane has created a massive body of work appealing to parents, their children, and teachers alike, carefully crafted to make not only teaching SEL fun, but learning it too,” says Elan Freedman, executive vice president, Surge Licensing. “TOMY is the ideal partner and platform for Diane to design new experiences for children to explore and understand their emotions, become better humans and learn to communicate effectively.”
TOMY is equally enthusiastic about the new partnership. “Infant and Preschool are well anchored in TOMY’s historical DNA, and we have deep expertise in successfully launching preschool brands,” says Morgan Weyl, managing director of licensing and global development. “TOMY’s mission is to make the world smile, so helping children learn to express themselves through play with the Little SPOT brand is perfectly aligned to the happy, healthy development we fully embrace in our daily work.”
The new products will be available online and direct-to-consumer in the first half of 2023 followed by brick-and-mortar stores later that year.
