Dom Galizia and Enrico Tassinari of Konami Digital Entertainment speak to Rachael Simpson-Jones about the importance of the Yu-Gi Oh! community, marketing, events and its plans for the year ahead.

The manga franchise Yu-Gi-Oh! continues to make waves across on-demand streaming services, mobile gaming and consumer products categories, including the licensed Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG developed and published by Konami.

Dom Galizia, senior marketing manager, and Enrico Tassinari, senior sales manager, at Konami Digital Entertainment B.V., tell Toy World why 2021 is such an exciting year for retailers to get on board.

Dom also tells Toy World how Konami has performed during the pandemic, and how the company is constantly working to better its proposition for fans and retailers alike. This has included engaging with its fanbase on social media and through online gaming events.  “For the past 12 months or so, we’ve tried to replicate everything we would usually do in terms of physical events using online events instead,” he says. “It’s not a like-for-like replacement; we’ve had to radically adapt our events to the climate we were facing, but we have managed to implement certain activities such as our Remote Duel programme.”

Dom explains how the business model means fans can look forward to new product releases every two or three weeks, and how Konami runs numerous events and activities as part of the wider Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG ecosystem and to support new product releases. Konami supports its retail partners with a range of in-store marketing materials, including eye-catching posters and banners that attract the attention of shoppers, and many of these form part of the company’s specialist Official Tournament Store (OTS) programme.

Toy World was also given exclusive insight into how Konami is building on its recently instigated Flagship Store initiative, in which flagship retailers benefit from special levels of support.

To read the full article, which appears in the June edition of Toy World, click here.