Wilton Bradley key account manager returns to the summit after a two year hiatus.

Mike Gascoigne literally destroyed the opposition in this year’s Toy World Fantasy Football League. His winning margin of 121 points represented a thoroughly convincing campaign for the former winner, who last topped the Toy World League three years ago. To put Mike’s performance in context, the game has almost 6m players and he came 1140th overall – an impressive feat.

Toy World’s John Baulch was once again the runner-up, beating Mattel’s Andrew Wiseman into third place, narrowly followed by Lee Murfet in fourth place and Chris Conway in fifth. A record 77 people participated in this year’s Toy World Fantasy Football League, and the fact that the winner of the past two seasons Hugh Evans found himself finishing in 8th place this year shows how fierce the competition was.

With next year’s Premier League fixtures already announced, it will only be a month or so before next year’s Fantasy League competition opens – if you’re interested in joining next year’s Toy World Fantasy League, drop john@toyworldmag.co.uk an email to register your interest.

Bandai UK adds extensive Robozuna range to portfolio, including collectibles, vehicles, figurines and playsets.

ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS GE) has appointed Hengxin Shambala Kids (Guangzhou) Cultural Industry Development (HSK) as master toy partner in China, along with Bandai as UK distributor for the upcoming action TV series Robozuna.

HSK, based in China, will develop and manufacture the Robozuna toy line, and distribution will be managed by Bandai in the UK.

A Netflix Original animated series, Robozuna follows 14 year old Ariston and his homemade robot Mangle as they join a team of robot gladiators known as Combatabots, whilst fighting to free their oppressed nation from the evil Corvus Imperium.

This original IP will launch across multiple platforms simultaneously in autumn 2018, including linear broadcast in the UK, SVOD around the globe through Netflix, YouTube Kids with short-form content, and in apps and gaming in partnership with award-winning UK-based Kuato Studios. Global social media influencers Ethan Gamer and Ali-A both star in the series and will be involved on an ongoing basis in promotion, as well as creating unique online content to supplement the series.

An extensive toy range has been developed, including Collectible 2.5” Battle ‘n Stack Combatabots, 5” Battling Feature Robots, a Transporter Vehicle Playset, Role Play and 12” Mega Mangle Figurine. The toy line is planned for spring/summer 2019 following the series launch in autumn 2018. Additional consumer products will rollout from autumn/winter 2019.

Nic Aldridge, managing director, Bandai UK, commented: “We are delighted to be working with ITV and HSK on this exciting project. Robozuna will be a great addition to our 2019 portfolio. Having seen the series content and supporting online material we feel that it will translate perfectly into a strong toy line. We know that the robot battling play pattern will resonate with our target audience of boys aged 4-9. We believe that Robozuna is the breath of fresh air that the boys action figure market is looking for.”

The new headquarters in Peterhead, Scotland, has increased the company’s overall capacity by 336%.

The new HQ has allowed Keycraft’s entire warehouse to be mapped, streamlining picking and packing operations to speed up deliveries for customers.

Stepping through the main door into the entrance hall, visitors enter the central hub. Called The Playground, some of Keycraft’s bestselling impulse brands are on display around the staircase, named The Climbing Frame. This platformed area shows off Keycraft’s bespoke, impulse designed solutions.

The Ball Pit breakout area allows colleagues to grab a coffee and have a catch up, while the Café and Picnic area for breaktimes has been designed to allow staff to escape the corporate playground.

Every aspect of the design has been curated by Woodalls Design, which has pulled together themes of creativity and nature to build an inspiring environment for the Keycraft team.

The Keycraft website states: “This environment will allow the whole team from warehouse, to sales, customer service, marketing and finance, the room to grow and space to come up with innovative ideas to help retailers around the world increase their profits with the Science of Impulse. Having been settled into our new home for a short while now, we look forward to visits from global staff members and clients from around the globe to see our new HQ (just remember to bring your ping pong paddle!).”

To find out more, and take a 360 tour, click here.

Sally brings years of experience to the role, with previous positions at companies including Hallmark. 

From past positions in the gifting and housewares industry, including time at Hallmark, Sally has worked with leading brands and retailers and brings with her a wealth of knowledge.

Alan Smith, managing director of Posh Paws, commented: “We are thrilled to welcome Sally to the team. Sally’s strong understanding and connections in gifting and retail will be invaluable to the growth of the Posh Paws business. We couldn’t think of anyone better for the job.”

Sally added: “I’m thrilled to be joining Posh Paws and to be working with a wonderful team of people. I’m especially looking forward to the new and exciting opportunities that lie ahead – It’s a case of ‘watch this space!’”

Chinese online marketplace has 552m customers, compared to Amazon’s most recently reported 310m customers. 

Last quarter, Alibaba generated revenues of $9.8b, up 61% year-on-year.

It’s now been reported by Forbes that Alibaba is growing its teams across Europe, recently relocating to Covent Garden in London with a newly expanded staff of 60.

David Lloyd, managing director of Alibaba in the UK and Nordics, spoke to reporters about what this expansion is about and what it means for Alibaba’s strategy in Europe.

Speaking to Forbes during London Tech Week, David commented: “Well, we’re not doing what you’d expect us to do. We’re not going toe-to-toe with local ecommerce players.”

Instead, it seems that Alibaba is focusing on two main objectives.

The first priority for Alibaba is to connect more businesses and brands in Europe with consumers in China.

David said: “We have staff with great expertise in what those Chinese consumers are looking for. We have a logistics network which helps get your product from the UK to China. And we have an advertising platform that helps build your brand in China.”

However, David insisted that Alibaba’s growing presence in Europe and the US is not about going after consumers or challenging Amazon or Asos, adding: “In Asia, we have 552m active consumers, and that grew by 37m last year. It’s honestly quite hard to even find 37m consumers in the UK.”

Alibaba’s second mission in Europe is to get more of its services working here — not for locals, but for traveling Chinese tourists. In China, one of the fastest-growing payment methods is mobile payments, which work by scanning a shop’s QR code with a smartphone.

Alibaba’s Alipay, which boasts 520m users in China, isn’t recognised across most of Europe, but David and his team are working to change that, with Harrods, Selfridges, the Body Shop all currently accepting the mobile payment platform.

Aggressive growth goals have been set for Alibaba over the next decade. With plans to hit $1 trillion in gross merchandise value by 2020 and 2b customers by 2036, Alibaba could effectively become the world’s fifth-largest economy, selling to one in every five people on earth.

Isaac Larian, CEO of MGA Entertainment, has tweeted about the apparent management takeover. 

The Tweet reads:

“#Savetoysrus: I just heard good news from Jean Charretteur (the GM of TRU Iberia) that he’s close to do a management take over and save TRU in France, Spain and Portugal. This is great news and I hope the hedge funds are reasonable with him so the same thing that happened to TRU in the USA doesn’t happen in Iberia.”

Isaac had previously led a crowdfunding campaign to save the bankrupt toy retailer, which was ultimately abandoned after multiple bids for the US and Puerto Rican stores were rejected.

More information on this story to follow.

Fundraising is still taking place to bring David home from Michigan.

Following a series of nasty falls, David was bed-bound in a nursing home. Robert Hookway, a close friend of David, set up a Just Giving page to try and raise the funds needed to fly him home, and give him treatment in a specialist care facility for people with spinal injuries.

The fund raising page is just short of its goal of £35,000, but has so far raised over £32,000, a testament to the generosity and compassion of the toy industry.

Toy World has received the following update from Robert Hookway, who has been fundraising on David’s behalf: “I wanted to let you know that I have booked flights home for David and his nursing assistant on Sunday 15th July, arriving LHR early on Monday the 16th. He will then travel by ambulance to the Radbrook Nursing Home in Shrewsbury.

He has a GP appointment lined up for the Tuesday which will start the assessment process that hopefully will lead to full NHS funding for his care.

We are just a little way short of our target, so if you haven’t yet donated it would be great if you could.

For those who have donated I’d just like to reiterate that without your help none of this would have been possible, and on behalf of David I’d like to say a big thank you.

Robert Hookway.”

If you would like to donate, please visit the following Just Giving page: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Robert-Hookway.

Funko’s managing director of EMEA, Andy Oddie, spoke to Toy World about taking to the road. 

With a host of products to its name, including its range of stylised Pop! Vinyl collectible figures, Funko continues to go from strength to strength in the pop culture marketplace. Offering some of the fastest times to market in the toy industry, and covering almost every IP in existence, the company is able to cover every relevant property going, be it niche, with a small but loyal fan following, or mass-market, global appeal properties like Star Wars.

Andy Oddie, managing director EMEA, explained: “We’ve been able to acquire licences for just about every piece of relevant IP in existence and translate it into our stylised Pop! vinyl figures. We can develop an item and bring it to market within three months, which means we have a natural marry-up with gaming studios in particular, and our items are always current and on-trend.”

The company is now eyeing up further expansion in the EMEA marketplace, having seen success with a campaign at the Spanish retailer Carrefour; gondola displays featuring TV screens play native animated shorts, produced by Funko Animation Studios in Bath.

“We are spending a lot of time on the road at the moment, delivering the message to retailers across EMEA and increasing our penetration,” said Andy. “The Comic Cons opening up across EMEA appeal to the grassroots fanbase, and we have attended Dubai Comic Con, followed by the Cape Town Comic Con. Within EMEA we are continuing to focus on core territories such as France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Nordics, where growth has been strongest recently.”

Andy added: “As a business, we have become more mature, growing through the types of individuals we are hiring to support us. When we acquired Underground Toys in January 2017 we had around 110 heads, now we are up to around 170. Even in a fun business like toys and collectibles, we need structure and professionalism – and our new faces help us with that immensely.”

To read the full, in-depth interview with Andy in the June issue of Toy World, click here.