John Baulch, publisher of Toy World magazine and the author of the Friday blog that has survived every newsletter cull Jo has ever attempted, joins Andy, Emily, and Jo for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of the toy industry in 2026 — which, it turns out, is in remarkably good shape.

John makes the case that the toy market is in a genuine purple patch: not driven by one breakout product creating supply chain chaos, but by four or five things working well simultaneously — Squishies, Pokémon, Lego, Toy Story merchandise, and the growing kidult phenomenon of adults buying collectibles for themselves. The conversation moves from evergreen IP and what Hasbro has done to revive Peppa Pig, to the fast-fashion end of the toy market: limited drops, chase figures, scarcity mechanics, and the PopMart model that the rest of the industry is now rapidly absorbing.

John's fast-fashion analogy is the sharpest frame in the episode — the idea that the toy industry is entering a phase where some product exists to thrill in the moment and disappear, just like a Primark seasonal range, and that this isn't a problem to be solved but a structural shift to be understood and managed. For anyone working in kids IP, licensing, or content who wants to understand how toys actually work in 2026, this is a very useful 40 minutes.

Welcome to the Kids Media Club podcast.

My name is Emily Horgan.

I'm Jo Redfern.

And normal services resumed.

Andy, we've got a guest today.

Tell us who it is.

We have got a guest today.

We're delighted to be joined by John Bolch, who is the publisher of Toy World magazine.

John, thanks so much for joining us today.

It's a pleasure.

Good afternoon everyone.

And just to get us started, would you be able to just give a brief introduction as to who you are and what you do?

Okay.

So I think people in the toy industry would know me, I think reasonably well, perhaps people from the media industry.

Some will and some won't.

So I've been involved in toy magazines pretty much for my entire career.

Process Biochemistry, Blinds and Shutters, Paint and Resin Use Brushes International.

And I was lucky enough that one of the titles in the group happened to be a Toy Trader.

And I thought, that sounds more fun.

That sounds something I can actually relate to.

You know, I'm 18, it's not that long since I've been playing with toys.

You know, it seemed a whole world away from the kind of more industrial based titles that they had.

I was lucky enough to find myself on it.

And from there I've kind of fallen from one toy magazine onto another toy magazine.

And then 15 years ago, in fact nearly 16 years ago now, I set up my own magazine, Toy World.

And it's business to business.

We, you know, we're read by people not just here in the uk, but across the world.

Toy companies, toy retailers, anybody who's part of the toy community will read our magazine and our website.

And I write a blog on a Friday where I try to make sense of what, what's going on in the, in the toy community.

It's, it can be quite edgy at times.

It, I don't try not to put any punches with the blog, but I think that's probably where it's found its audience.

We've, we've tried to do things a little differently at toy world.

B2B is, is a difficult area and so many magazines tend to err on the side of, you know, client journalism or cut and paste press releases, et cetera.

And I think we've tried to do something a little bit different, be a little bit more honest, be a little bit more authentic.

And I think ultimately that, you know, we've got a tremendously engaged audience, a tremendously knowledgeable audience.

Writing for B2B can can be quite tricky because these people know their stuff.

They can be running million dollar companies, they can be running massive retail organizations.

They're living and breathing toys and we're having to write something that they will find interesting, engaging something, you know, challenge their preconceptions or, or make them think about things.

So, you know, our approach has always been to try and really immerse ourselves in the toy industry.

I'm very lucky that I work on one magazine.

Many, many B2B publishers have a group of 10 or 12 magazines and they divide their time and they try and be an expert in everything.

And we've always taken completely different approach.

You know, our specialism is toys and licensing and that's what we stick to.

And therefore every day we are living and breathing and talking toys and licensing to everybody we deal with.

And hopefully that allows us to get under the skin of the industry a little bit.

I would certainly, I reckon I've probably been reading your Friday blog at least for 10 years.

It's always been one of those that, if I've ever made a cull of newsletters, it's always been one that survived the Cold war.

It's the Friday blog and well, paint and resin users loss was our gain.

Thank goodness.

You and resin music behind.

But yeah, I mean, before we get into the questions, just give us a bit of a state of the industry of toys for, for listeners.

Where, where are we at now?

What's your read on where we are at currently?

Well, if, if we're looking at 20, 26 specifically, the toy industry is having a, having a wonderful year.

It's in a real purple patch.

And you can look at the, you know, the economy, the macroeconomics, which are not so hot in the UK at the moment.

You can look at the challenges within the retail landscape and say, well, okay, retail, there are some winners and some losers, but actually if you, you hone in on toys, the toy market is remarkably resilient generally.

And this year we're having an absolutely storming year.

It's just one of those years where lots of things are coming together at the same time, working well.

And often when that's been the case in the past, there's been one big toy or one big range that's been dominating.

And then you have the problems of can you get hold of stock, etc.

This year we've got four or five things that are working incredibly well.

So we're.

When you're talking to retailers, when you're talking to toy companies, the majority are actually having A really, really good year.

Which is, which is nice because having spent, you know, the best part of 45 years in the toy industry, these are quite rare.

That, that's fascinating.

So what are the four or five things?

When you were saying the four or five things that are working relatively well, I was just curious to know.

Sure.

Well, the, the big one at the moment is Squishies.

And I think anybody with parents of kids of a certain age will know that these sort of sensory, tactile toys have become just an absolutely huge category for the toy industry and constantly reinventing itself.

You know, one week it's squishy butter and cheese, the next week it's squishy bowel buns.

And you would think to yourself, well, they've taken this as far as it can go.

Like, it can't be anything else.

They can, oh no, there will, there will be something new next week and next month.

So, and this is absolutely flying, you know, stock goes into retailers and it's selling out rapidly.

So that's fantastic.

You've got Pokemon, which is still having a tremendous time.

I mean, when my eldest daughter was young, she, she got into Pokemon or you know, kids at school had cards and everything like that.

And now she's a mother, I'm a granddad.

And it's, it's bigger than it arguably ever was.

Lego, of course, I mean, Lego, you would argue, is a, is a perennial.

Although if you go back, say 15 to 20 years, Lego was having its own challenges, but it's in an incredible phase at the moment.

And again, every time a new LEGO drop goes through stores, see tremendous traffic, tremendous footprint fall, then you throw in some really strong licenses.

This year Toy Story has been a tremendous movie, both at the box office and in terms of selling product.

And you know, you've got all of this happening at the same time.

And suddenly the toy industry is sitting there with so many different things that can drive footfall, that can bring customers into store.

And the other thing I suppose I didn't mention, but is, is not specific to this year, but is grow of the industry is what's termed the kid alt phenomenon, I. E. Adults buying toys not for children, but for themselves.

So you see collectibles and general kiddo products.

Again, five to 10 years ago, this was niche, this was kind of nerd stuff.

This, you know, pop culture was almost an alien concept to many toy retailers who were quite traditional.

Now everybody's embracing it.

Suddenly they see a whole new audience coming into their store, which is incremental.

It's not taking anything away.

So they're still selling lots of toys to kids, but now they've got a whole new demographic, a whole new bunch of consumers that they can offer product to.

So you, you layer that on top of everything that's working for kids and you've got that sort of perfect storm at the moment of, hey, isn't, isn't, isn't it great?

So, you know, you talk to retailers and they're all in a really positive.

Toy retailers are in a positive frame of mind at the moment.

That's great.

The one, the one that kiddle thing that I think is being executed quite well at the moment, John, is by, as you mentioned them, lego.

So Lego, you know, have really leaned into kind of that older, you know, older mindfulness around LEGO products and stuff like that.

Are there any other really good examples that you can think of of people who are doing the kiddled thing?

Well,.

Well, again, I mean, Lego, as you say, is the perfect example.

And when you look at, say, Sakana's data, they will always cite Lego as the biggest.

And LEGO are smart because they realized that, you know, I think this really, really kicked on a huge level during the COVID During pandemic.

Adults were at home with a lot of time to kill and suddenly, you know, they were refining their love of building things.

I had mates who were going out and buying these huge kits and just sitting there for days on end constructing them.

And, and LEGO have been, you know, have looked at that, seen that as an opportunity, but have then started to identify specific fandoms.

So they will take Formula one, for example.

They're doing tremendously well with a Formula one range.

Botanicals has been amazing.

Who would have thought that buying kits that would make flowers would be so popular?

And yet, you know, the, they've absolutely taken off.

And again, particularly around Valentine's Day and, you know, Mother's Day and things like this, those have been huge.

So LEGO have kind of blazed a trail.

But what you've got is lots of other companies looking at their product ranges and saying, well, okay, what have we got here that might appeal to an older demographic?

And sometimes that can be nostalgia based, sometimes it can be based on the kind of TV shows or movies that they, they want to watch.

So, you know, we were definitely seeing this phenomenon of kids not buying as many action figures a few years ago.

But what's happened is the kid buying the action figure has almost been replaced by the adult buying the action figure.

And, and therefore toy companies could look and say, well, okay, we can really up spec these.

We can produce really much more high quality, beautiful, articulated figures.

So if you look at some of the, say, the Hasbro Black series product, it's absolutely phenomenal.

And pretty much every toy company has got ranges within their portfolio that will appeal to adults, whether that's crafting ranges or whether it's just collectibles or something to, you know, to show home.

So suddenly the toy, you know, Mattel have done tremendous job historically with Barbie, for example, with adult collectors, they've always produced a wonderful collector series.

But now they're realizing that they can go all the way through their ranges with, with Hot Wheels, even with things like Monster High, and they can produce this much higher quality product that will appeal to a completely different demographic.

So it's kind of revolutionizing the way toy companies think about their ranging their, and marketing how they, they do their back catalog.

Because in the past the only way to really monetize a back catalog was to say, right, well, we'll bring it out and hope that it appeals to kids of this, this generation.

Sometimes that works tremendously, sometimes it doesn't work.

But now they've realized you don't necessarily have to just appeal to kids, but you can bring it back to appeal to the adults who were fans 20, 30 years ago, who maybe have now got a bit more money, bit more disposable income that they're happy to spend on, on products.

So I think you're seeing this kind of pop culture become less niche, less sort of nerdy and much more widespread and much more accepting, you know, in the mainstream.

Would you, would you pin that on any one particular trend?

Or do you think it's a combination of trends?

Is it the fact that toy companies can now segment and they've got more data to know what fandoms exist?

Is it the fact that we're kind of in this treat culture, you know, when macroeconomic conditions aren't great, we all tend to want to kind of treat ourselves to little things.

It's both of those things, I think definitely the, you know, the idea that as an adult, affordable joy.

I've used the phrase, I think in the blog a couple of times.

You, maybe you haven't moved house, maybe you haven't bought a new car or whatever.

But you know, you, you, you're in the high street at the weekend and you see a figure based on a movie you loved from your childhood or, or a TV show that you love and it's 10 or 15 or 20 or 25 pounds, and you think yeah.

Do you know what that speaks to me?

That, you know, that says something and I'll have that.

So I think that is a huge factor and I think toy companies becoming aware of it because in the past this, you know, I think it started as very much a consumer driven thing and toy companies weren't necessarily catering specifically it.

Now that's very, very different.

You know, now they, they realize that Comic Con isn't just a kind of slightly weird niche thing for cosplayers.

It's a wonderful commercial opportunity.

And when you, when companies then start to, to think about that and develop products specifically for that market, talk to those fans specifically rather than, you know, in the past maybe fans had to seek stuff out.

Now companies are actively finding them and talking to them.

So I think it's a little bit of everything really, but the, the, the environment is certainly right for it and, and it's not going to go away.

I mean this is, this has been growing significantly in the toy market for the last few years and I think we're nowhere near the ceiling yet.

There's, there's a long way for this to go because there are still so many companies and brands that are working out how to develop strategies that will actually appeal to consumers that I think, yeah, we've got a long way to go here.

And it's just, and it's a lovely counterbalance.

I mean, I think it's really important that we don't forget kids.

You know, the rush towards Kiddo is really important for the toy market.

But equally, if we want to look long term and we want a toy market in 20, 25 years time, those are going to be the kid alts of tomorrow.

They've got to love things now so that in 25 years time they go out and search for these things.

So we need to keep both of those plates spinning.

It's really important.

But as long as we do that, then I think we're building in longevity for the industry rather than obsolescence, which again is kind of crucial really.

I love your take, John.

On that note.

So original IP coming through.

Because when we had exchanged on a bit as well as K Pop Demon Hunters.

Right.

And that wasn't necessarily one of the four or five things on your list.

Maybe it would have been because I'm track like I've been tracking that all summer.

I've been tracking it in toy shops majorly.

I was in an airport the other day, there was Saja Boys face masks going down.

I've seen the product pirated and the Knockoffs available in markets.

I do actually think I might have a semi questionable derpy tiger somewhere.

Ishmael.

I'm not admitting that on camera, frankly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Netflix copyright lawyers will be on us.

Oh dear.

But yeah, that like that's it.

That's an original IP that broke through in a major way.

Obviously they did the kind of landmark deal with Hasbro and Mattel last year on the dolls and everything like that.

Because it feels like we need to have original IP coming through if we're going to keep, you know, the next generation engaged.

What are you seeing on that?

Oh, that's.

First of all, that's absolutely essential new IP.

We cannot just constantly regurgitate and rehash things from 30, 40, 50 years ago.

We do need new IP because of the excitement it brings.

I didn't mention K Pop Demon Hunters for, for a very specific reason, which is I product is finally now just creeping official product, not the knockoff product is now finally creeping into stores.

And what I'm waiting to see is the take up because this is unprecedented.

I, I can't remember in recent history.

I go back a long way and I can remember that you.

There we go.

I go back a long way and I can remember that, that sometimes things would take a long time to come to market.

We've moved past that as an industry.

We need, you know, we need to tap into what consumers really want and we need to move swiftly to give it to them.

Troy was there at Disney when Frozen happened and it was painful.

Like, I mean it was.

I was man on the phone lines, you know what I mean?

Absolutely.

And that was, that was the most obvious example in recent times where Disney kind of, you know, my take on that is that Disney themselves overlooked that Disney were being run at the time by all ex Marvel execs who were really excited about the next addition to the Marvel universe.

And then there's this very traditional cartoon, very traditional animation based on an old fairy tale.

And they thought, oh well, it's kind of sweet but you know, nothing to get excited about.

They actually did a big presentation that year to licensees and retailers and they gave out some, as I remember, they gave out some, you know, a booklet didn't even have Frozen in it.

And I think licensees and retailers take that cue.

If, if somebody's really excited about a product, if a license was really excited and they can convey that excitement to the licensees, there's a natur.

Flow, flow through.

So Disney, I kind of think missed that one themselves to a degree.

Netflix was an interesting one.

I believe they were trying to get licensees on board with K Pop Demon Hunters and licensees were quite reluctant.

I think there are several reasons for that.

Netflix haven't got really any track record in kids particularly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

From a toys and licensing point of view.

And that's one specific.

Not necessarily from a broadcast point of view, but from a toys and licensing point of view.

And, and I think a lot of people weren't convinced.

A lot of people at toy companies were sort of adopted that wait and see.

Obviously the, the animation went live, went crazy.

Everybody, you know, got into it.

My granddaughter at the age of two last summer was, was obsessed with K Pop Demon Hunters and singing the songs and everything like that.

I watched it and actually I thought it was quite good.

I Genu genuinely, genuinely enjoyed it.

But the thing is that's, that's 14 months ago now and we're in a fast moving.

You know, they talk about fast fashion.

Well this f Toys is fast.

You know, there's the squishy market is moving on a monthly basis.

K Pop demon hunters is 14 months old now.

And I, I have a slight concern which is first of all there was so much knockoff merchandise at the end of last year that some parents may have invested in that because of, you know, because of there was any official,.

Like a movie, it's like a movie being pirated before, before they release it.

And if everyone's seen the pirate, they.

Did have some, they did have some merchandise on Netflix Shop.

But it was like, I think it was like €90 for a pair of jammy bottoms.

Like it was just.

There were a few things, I know a couple of licensees, some of the more paper product type ones who went quite early last year, some, some stationery and various things like that.

They were absolutely making fortunes because they had official merchandise when nothing else much was available.

But it's been so long now that I'm, I'm curious to see.

I mean I hope, genuinely hope that it's hugely successful because there's a lot of licensees have invested a lot of money in K Pop Demon Hunters and retailers I think have bought in because they've, you know, they realize how big it was last year I've just got this tiny little bit of concern, you know and we speak to retailers quite regularly and everybody's talking about Squishies and everybody's talking about Pokemon and everybody's talking about Lego.

As of yet, I'm not getting lots of retailers coming back to me talking about K Pop Demon Hunters.

And I'm hoping that's just because product is just going into store now and we'll start to pick this up over the next, you know, over the coming weeks and months, etc.

But genuinely my concern is the gap between the, the, the absolute, you know, the, the apex of when the, the animation was.

Yeah.

And the available.

And that's my, my quite point on it would be, you know, where's like a new, a new drop of content, you know, and I'm not saying a new movie, the new movie can and should wait until it's ready but you know, where is like new editorial content?

There needs to be something, I mean.

That, that really resonates, I think with.

Well one, you talked about fast fashion and about how that applies to toys and it feels like the, that highlights a tension between how long it takes to develop a TV series or a movie for one of the streamers or for the studios and then how quick retailers move.

So where is, where's the engine for new toy franchises at the moment?

Is it coming from TV and streaming and movies or, or is it coming from somewhere else?

Well, it's, it's multiple engines.

I mean this is, this is something that I've, you know, worked with for decades.

You know, for a period of time it'll be.

Movies will be really, really hot and then everybody will say, oh, the window for selling merchandise based on a movie is, is too narrow.

Look at something that's got more longevity.

So they'll move to TV series.

We're also seeing other areas that are perhaps not even as reactive as TV series.

Sport is a, is an absolutely, I mean sports.

One of the fastest growing areas of the toy industry.

If you look at the product that was been sold this year for the World cup and I've already got toy companies talking about the Euros and the next World cup, you know, which are respectively two and nearly four years away.

And toy companies are already planning for that.

F1 has been one of the most, to me, one of the most revelatory things in the last few years.

You know, I've got a few mates who are hugely into motor racing, you know, motor racing nerds.

And they'll, they'll go down to Le Mans and they'll go to various Grand Prix.

It's not my kind of thing, but suddenly people have tapped into the fact that it's, it's almost now gone past being again a sort of a niche thing and it's become much more mainstream.

So you're seeing toy companies adopting that And I think what they're trying to do with their portfolios is build balance into it so they can have some things that they know will be there every year that they can just refresh, that they can tidy up, they can change some colors, they can change some personnel, etc, but they'll always be there.

And then they're looking for TV series particularly, you know, if, if you know that something is going to have legs like a Paw Patrol or a Bluey or some, you know, something along those kind lines.

That's really appealing because again, all of your development costs, which you're absolutely right, Andy, you know, development costs can be quite high.

And so what you're looking for is how can you amortize that over the maximum amount of time possible.

With movies, it used to be, hey, well we'll get the movie and then we'll get the DVD release.

So at least we'll get two hits.

Now they don't even get the DVD release.

And with, with movies, you know, there's still a tremendous opportunity.

But I think when you look at some of the really successful movies, it has been those franchise ones that have been hits before.

I wasn't at all surprised that Toy Story was hugely successful because it's got a tremendous fan base from again, kids who watch the first one.

Many of them will be parents now, right the way through, you know, the viewers of Disney plus who I'm sure will have gone religiously through all of the various toy stories.

So something like that landing again is a, is a safer bet because you can think to yourself, well, okay, it'll have the, you know, it's got the awareness before the movie comes, then the movie will come.

So there will be a big hype but then it'll go on to Disney plus and that'll keep the sales ticking over nicely.

There's always new kids coming through, you know, and you know, again, we talked about this, about our own children and how that can affect how we see things.

But you know, I'm seeing it again now being a granddad.

I've got a, I've got a three year old granddaughter and a grandson who's now three months old.

And it's really interesting because, you know, I remember when my kids were younger watching, you know, what, what they watched, what was good watching how they interacted with programs or movies or toys.

It's obviously a very, very different landscape now with streaming else, but there are so many touch points for kids to get into it.

And what you really want is the kind of franchises that will be around for a while rather than the quick in and outs.

And I think that's where Netflix were right to say, well, actually, you know, we see this as a five year roadmap.

We see, we see this as something that's going to have a good five to six years.

That's how they sold it to the licensees.

I think some of the licensees were then a little bit shocked.

Stop.

That.

And I believe, and again, I would defer to.

You're all far more knowledgeable about this than me.

But I believe there's been some evidence that there's been some drop off in Netflix shows where there's too big a gap between one series and the next series.

I mean, there's natural drop off between season one and season two of anything.

That's, that's, that's, that's always been the case in linear or beyond.

You know, I think it's right that they're taking the time to get the second movie right.

But you did mention one show there I wanted to come back to you on a little bit.

So Bluey, okay, now we all love Bluey.

We're all here.

We all.

Bluey.

Bluey runs the world.

But like, think about it from a toy perspective.

Would you have backed Bluey in the beginning?

Because you're talking about a blue dog that's a girl.

You know, I know that the color palette of the show was absolutely adorable.

You know, very local, very Australian.

Cause I think that's one that it's just, you know, it worked because the story, the writing is so good.

But like, like, I think a licensee looking at that from the get go would have been a bit like h. And if they hadn't had Moose, you know, obviously an Australian, an Australian toy company at the, at the sales and, and, and willing to, to, to believe in this and, and I guess willing to.

Willing and possibly happy if it was only big in Australia, right?

Like they could have lived.

They possibly could have lived with that.

I'd love to hear your views on Bluey as a kind of global toy opportunity.

Trying to, trying to disremember the last 10 years or whatever.

It's.

Gosh, it's is, it's nearly.

Oh my God, it's nearly 10 years old, you know, but like, it's, it's easy to say, oh yeah, it's huge after the fact.

But in the moment before the fact, you're talking about the.

What, what would your thoughts have been on Bluey?

I'd love to hear that.

Well, I think.

I think you're absolutely right.

I mean, you and I, we all see TV programs early on in their, you know, in their lifespan, and sometimes things that you think are going to be huge are on and sometimes things that you think, yeah, I'm not really not sure about this, go on to be hugely successful.

I think you're absolutely right.

With Bluey, what was great was there wasn't too much pressure on it from day one.

Sometimes expectations can be raised too high with Bluey because it started in Australia, which is not, you know, it's a.

It's a big territory, but it's not necessarily one of the.

The huge territories.

And therefore it could.

It started, it landed, it found its feet.

I think it's.

The big thing with Bluey is the quality of the writing.

Look, the animation's lovely.

The quality of the writing is.

Is wonderful.

And I think it does resonate.

And I think what was interesting was because it was so much of a hit in Australia, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be a hit anywhere else.

You know, there are some people had territories where you think if it's a hit there, the chances are it's going to translate.

Australia hasn't really had anything like that before.

But what was interesting is I was talking to the BBC, you know, when they picked it up and they believed in it from day one.

They were absolutely.

And they'd been going through a tough time themselves.

You know, BBC license had had a stretch of maybe two, three, possibly even four years where they hadn't really had a property that was really catching on with consumers.

They had a couple of things that were ticking over, you know, things that, you know, were nice, but there was nothing really mass, nothing really huge in the BBC portfolio.

And they were adamant to me, you know, from day one, look, this is.

This is going to be the one.

This is going to be the one that really puts us back on the map.

And sometimes a belief from a licensor, you know, proper belief, not sort of, you know, every licensor thinks they've got the number one brand.

In fact, everybody license or tends to say that they've got the number one brand in their time slot.

I don't know how this actually works because, you know, if I attend presentations,.

Not everyone could have the number one slot.

No, exactly.

I attend presentations where apparently there's.

There's 14 properties that are all the number one at the same time.

And I'm not quite sure how, you know, what you know, where the asterisks underneath where that leads me to in Albania or something like that, you know, But.

But that was one where I think it was just that beautiful combination of nice animation, really good, compelling characters, great storylines, great dialogue.

But the.

But it had the chance to bed itself in, rather than the expectation levels being so high from day one that then, you know, even a slight underperformance.

And I see this all the time with movies in particular, where people will say, oh, one's expected to do X or Y or Z, and then it comes in a little bit below that, you know, and Disney have been, I think, a little bit unfairly pillared in a couple of cases in recent years where people have gone, oh, that underperformed.

And you kind of think, well, underperformed based on what?

Underperformed a million.

Yeah, underperformed based on perhaps unrealistic expectations.

So I think that was the beauty with Bluey was the.

It didn't come.

You know, it didn't come out of the gate.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, I think I. I think Bluey is a.

For me, it reminds me of Peppa Pig, because Peppa Pig is a show where you wouldn't have.

Those characters aren't characters that really lend themselves to.

To be toys in a lot of respects.

I. I think that both Bluey and Peppa Pig, the audience just loves that world and those characters and related to them in all kinds of ways.

So anything that came out of that show, it already had the advantage of just that affection and love that the audience had for it.

So they kind of wanted to play the show.

I think they're shows that are, like, the opposite of toyetic.

They're the.

Their shows.

They're toys that need the show to be.

To really work rather than.

And some shows, you feel like the toy can come first, but those definitely feel like the toy comes after you've built that emotion.

They're authentic, and they.

And I think they do get through to people, and that's why they want to buy the toys.

It's not the inherent design within the toy itself, per se.

It's actually the fact that they love that character, that they love that family.

They identify with that show.

And I think.

And I will say this, I think Hasbro has.

Has played a master stroke in the last few years because Pepper, what, you know, grew very, very slowly.

You know, it wasn't big from the start, unlike Bluey.

You know, it took a while to get into its.

Into its stride.

Took about.

It took about six or seven Years really.

I was at Nickelodeon at the time when we had it.

It took a long time.

Yeah.

And then, then you kind of felt, oh, I think it's probably peaked and it's probably on its way down.

And then in the last couple of.

Years,.

The revival, the resurgence of Pepper, I think has been phenomenal.

And I think there's going to be a lot of companies, toy companies, animation companies, licensing companies, looking at what Hasbro has done and saying, well, okay, this is great.

You know, they've taken a product that was, you know, an animation that was perhaps, you know, past its sell by day and was, you know, people were almost saying, well, where's this going doing, you know, it's only, almost only going one way.

And then suddenly the last two years it's, it's gone stratospheric again.

Which is we, as I say for me, testament to Hasbro.

Because I think they've, you know, really done an amazing job on that.

And, and, and it does give hope, I think then too, because everybody wants these properties to have longevity, you know.

No, nobody wants it to be a year or two years or three year wonder.

But actually if you can keep, can actually revive it like that, then that, that really does open up a lot of opportunities.

Yeah, let, let's go to the other end of the scale in terms of, you know, we're talking about developing a love for characters in a world and then the toy comes and that's very much the evergreens that we're talking about, that longevity.

But then the other side of the scale is those limited drop collectibles that trade on fomo normally driven by social media hack.

We spoken about the bow bun squishies.

I mean, goodness, if I'd bought everyone that's been on my TikTok feed of late, I'd be bankrupt.

Hot and disposable.

I think I termed them to somebody the other day.

Hot and disposable.

Hot and disposable.

Yeah.

So that's, that's the opposite end of the scale.

But as you've said, you've got toy companies that want a balanced portfolio.

Tell us a little bit about how those limited drop collectibles are moving on.

Because now we've got popmart.

I mean popmart is just, just a phenomenon.

Yeah, and, and, and again, I suppose what we've seen is a couple of examples.

I mean, popmart interestingly kind of swerved the toy industry.

It's not really considered part of the toy ecosystem.

There's it, it's available in a Very limited way through toy retail stores.

I think the entertainer's got a couple of kiosks where you can, where you can buy various PopMart products.

But E, they decided that they would do it in a very, very different way.

But the way they did it has been adopted by other people.

As you say, the Squishies is the prime example of that this year.

Yes, everybody wants longevity but my goodness, the in and out, if you, if you get one of those that works, the, the, the volumes it can generate.

Because what we need in the toy industry is that lovely balance between things that, you know, people know and love and you know, they've known for a long time and there's a sort of a warmth there.

But we need excitement, we need thrill, we need something that drives footfall, we need something that, you know, actually the thrill of the chase.

And that's the thing, you know, lots of toy companies are now building these rare, these scarce, these chase figures into ranges because that in itself, you know, that combination of collectibility and scarcity, rarity, you know, is, is thrilling.

Doesn't matter whether you're a, you know, a four year old kid or five year old kid taking stuff to the playground or a teen or a tween or, or, or a kiddo, you know, it, that, that there's something about the psychology of that that really, really works.

And again, it comes back to the affordable joy that you're, you're, you know, you're, you're buying these for a few pounds and you could get something.

Now of course there are, are cynics, there are scalpers, there are people that are doing it, you know, and we're all seeing it, you know, we're seeing examples where they're going into retail buying armfuls and then going home and putting them straight on ebay.

And that for me is a little bit sad.

I, you know, I actually prefer when it's genuine and authentic and organic.

But you know, that in itself is also driving this kind of, you know, this kind of energy, this excitement and, and the toy tray should be that combination.

You know, if you go back to the 80s and 90s and noughties, you'll remember the days of Cabbage Patch Kids or your Teletubbies.

Well, everybody keepers.

Revived keepers.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, and parents would be running around queuing or trying to, you know, fighting in the worst cases, but you know, trying to fight one of these things.

The toy industry needs that excitement just as much as we need that sort of lovely, reassuring, oh, you know, everybody's always loved this brand and, you know, they carry on loving it, but that excitement adds a whole other layer.

So it is really important.

And I think we have tapped into what certain companies, you know, just outside the toy market have been doing and have brought that in, making it a bit more toyetic.

As I say, the Booboo is an interesting one that's kind of gone, I think now to a, to a great degree.

And this is where I came up with the sort of, you know, fast fashion analogy several months ago in the blog that, you know, everybody accepts that somebody like Primark will have things in for a limited amount of time and then that'll be it.

It'll move them on, you won't see them again, and something else will come in.

I think we are in a phase where the toy industry is going to be doing this for quite some time now.

It's, it's difficult to get that right.

But if you do get it right, the rewards are, are tremendous.

So I think, you know, we're going to be seeing a lot more of this in toys.

Definitely.

Great.

So, John, thanks so much for that.

That is very cool.

I, I had a moment there.

I was thinking, this is so great.

Get to spend 40 minutes talking about toys.

How fantastic is that?

I get my toy work.

Tell me about toys.

So there you go.

Eight, two.

Yeah, I love.

No, that's great.

Shall I do a quick sign off?

Great.

So, Sam, thanks so much for that, John.

I hope you guys enjoyed listening.

Please, like, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and we will see you all next week.

Mine's.

Mine's real, though.

Emily.