Hasbro’s Cat O’Brien talks innovation, 2024 highlights and vault brand plans

Cat, it’s always lovely to chat. It’s been a busy year for you and the team, with some mammoth anniversaries. How do you reflect on 2024 so far?
As you say, it’s been a good, busy year. We’ve had some amazing launches. Celebrating PEPPA PIG’s 20th has brought with it some amazing new licensing agreements and collaborations – from halo partners to mass market opportunities. It sets us up for a great 2025.

It’s also fair to say the economic backdrop – if you look at Circana – has made for a tough trading year. We’ve had to work really hard to ensure our brands stay top of mind for consumers and that retailers continue to want to support them. I’m very excited for 2025 and the years to come; we’ve laid some fantastic foundations.

“Creative is critical to every aspect of what we do.”

Did these anniversaries – PEPPA PIG’s 20th, TRANSFORMERS’ 40th and DUNGEONS & DRAGONS’ 50th – come at a good time? In the sense that they’ve been useful to have as activity during a tough time at retail?
It has, but it’s a double-edged sword… If the climate was kinder, maybe those activations could’ve been bigger. But to your point, these anniversaries gave people a reason to go to retail. It gave partners a reason to go bigger than they otherwise would in a ‘normal’ year.

We’ve covered all three of the anniversary programmes in detail, but do any launches stand out for you as being particularly special?
There’s been a number of them! For PEPPA PIG, we wanted to deliver a new collaboration every single month. We set out to deliver 12 across the year and we surpassed that! We started the year with the Trotters and Liberty launch. We’d never worked with them before, and look at what they did – the product is absolutely stunning. They’re beautiful and high-end… What happens when you position a brand up there is a trickle-down effect into the mass market. It gets everybody looking and talking.

We also opened up DTR partnerships with JoJo Maman Bébé. We’d been trying to get that off the ground for years and managed to succeed this year. Our collaboration with LEGO this year have been phenomenal… We had a DUPLO range for PEPPA PIG, but there’s also been LEGO TRANSFORMERS and LEGO DUNGEONS & DRAGONS sets. They’ve been a new and superb partner. Those sets have resonated so well with our consumers – and our key retailers like Smyths and The Entertainer.

I also have to mention Royal Mail. You couldn’t get more British if you tried. It’s a really different type of licensing agreement. We collaborated with them for PEPPA PIG, TRANSFORMERS and D&D – and there’s more to come. It’s been incredibly lucrative, but it’s also delivered some stand-out marketing for the brands. The campaign they did for PEPPA PIG gave us goosebumps – they really understood the DNA of the brand and the emotional connection it has to consumers.

Great picks – and a very eclectic mix of categories. What guides how you extend your brands? What are some key ‘north stars’?
It differs with each brand. If you look at PEPPA PIG, that’s a true franchise brand. Consumers engage with every spoke of that wheel and that comes with a huge amount of opportunity. We look at the gap analysis and the categories that feel right for a brand. We want everything we do to be complementary – we don’t want to cannibalise. It’s about collaboration too. We look at a partner’s values, passion and how they might drive a collaboration. That’s just as important as anything else.

“Innovation is working at retail.”

We like working with partners that push the boundaries and think differently. Just because something hasn’t been done before, doesn’t mean it can’t be done. That’s how you strike new licensing agreements around innovative product… And that’s what’s working right now – innovation is working at retail.

There’s the headline Cat! And how much of the job is about bringing new companies into licensing?
It’s a key part of the job. We had some great examples of product on our BLE stand this year from companies that were new to Hasbro – and new to licensing. We have a beautiful range with The Luxury Nursery Company. It’s a collection of PEPPA PIG soft play items, with blocks, steps, slides… They hadn’t done licensing before and even their distribution was fairly limited at that point – but their products are beautiful. It was great opportunity that felt authentic to PEPPA PIG’s brand DNA, so we made it happen.

Our long-standing partners are incredibly important to our business. They have a huge amount of knowledge and the relationships at retail to ensure success. But smaller companies that are trying to break through bring different thinking – because they have to. As a business, Hasbro is a big supporter of the licensing industry and we want to bring new players into this business.

We’ve spoken about some of your big pillar brands, but are there any Hasbro vault brands you’d like to do more with?
Our portfolio is huge. We have over 1,900 properties under the Hasbro portfolio and we are doing a lot more with the vault brands – and we’re out licensing quite a lot too. LITTLEST PET SHOP is a great recent example. The toys are doing exceptionally well and we will be licensing it. That’s one to watch.

Two more that are household names but ones that we haven’t hugely licensed out are MONOPOLY and PLAY-DOH. MONOPOLY celebrates its 90th anniversary next year and that’s given us an opportunity to do more with it in clothing, food and beverage, accessories… We have some amazing plans in place for that.

We talk about PLAY-DOH an awful lot… How do we license this brand? It’s trickier, but we want to lean into the DNA of the brand. Imagination, colours, vibrancy… It’s ripe for licensing and one we’ll focus on moving forward.

“Nostalgia has been very prominent this year and I don’t see that going away.”

We’ll keep an eye out for those moving forward. Now, we’re chatting in-person at BLE 2024 – how key are trade shows in fuelling your creativity? Do they help you have ideas?
100%. We always make time in the schedule to walk the floor and see what others are doing. It sparks our creativity and also the creativity of our partners. They see everything out there as well.

Creative is critical to every aspect of what we do. You could have the most well-known brand in the world, but if the creative isn’t right the product won’t sell. And the reverse is true… You could have a brand that no-one knows, but if it’s a beautiful product, people will buy it. It’s critical to success, and these shows are critical to igniting that spark.

Before we wrap up, are there any trends you’ve spotted that you feel will shape or impact the industry in 2025?
Nostalgia and all things retro has been very prominent this year and I don’t see that going away. We’re very fortunate with the rich heritage we have in the portfolio. Look at FURBY – we brought the toy back and it went straight to number one in feature plush, both globally and locally. And we’re seeing the retro side of FURBY really resonate in apparel and accessories.

It’s the same with brands like MY LITTLE PONY and TRANSFORMERS – they span kids to adults. Retailers like HMV and Primark are doing great adult business with TRANSFORMERS. So retro would be one pick.

Experiences would be another. Consumers are favouring experiences over product and we can benefit from that. We have a huge portfolio of live experiences, both here in the UK and globally. PEPPA PIG World continues to do phenomenal business, and MONOPOLY Lifesized has been a real success too.

“We have amazing plans in place for MONOPOLY’s 90th in 2025.”

The question is how do we differentiate ourselves within these trends. If everybody follows the same trends, where’s your point of difference? It comes down to the creative execution. You’ve got to lean into the brand DNA and make sure it’s right for the trend. Look at PEPPA PIG, she wouldn’t work for retro – she’s only 20 years old… It might come a few years down the line but she’s not there yet. Whereas MY LITTLE PONY, TRANSFORMERS, D&D and plenty others all fit that perfectly. Then the product has to be innovative and the creative has to be on point. And with experiences, they have to be the best in the market – and we deliver on all of that.

Absolutely. Always a pleasure! Thanks Cat.