Striker Entertainment’s Mandy Bardisbanian on the two ways to tell if a brand has product potential

Mandy, thank you for making time to chat! To kick us off, talk me through your role at Striker Entertainment.
My title at Striker is Vice President of IP and Business Development – that means I manage several of our IP licensing programmes from start to finish. That includes everything from developing a strategy to striking deals with licensees, to retail development and managing the program over-all for long-term success. For example on the retail side, we have relationships with everyone in the speciality space, so when we have a new property that we know they’ll want, we have meetings with every single of them. We want to ensure that the retailers know what licensees are on board, to see if they feel we’re missing anything and keep things fair so that competition between retailers is low.

I’d imagine that also includes looking for new IP to represent?
Absolutely! I spend a lot of time scouring , game platform rankings and social media to see what’s new and trending. It also helps to have a few young people hanging around to find out what’s hot straight from the consumer. There are many sources to keeping up-to-date with the latest trends. I’ve probably left out something!

No, anymore and I’m not sure how you’d find the time! But diving into that a little further, what makes a brand right for Striker? What sort of thing appeals?
In general, we’ll have directors and producers ask us: “How do you know when a property is merchandisable?” There’s no standard answer to that… The only answer I give is: “We just know!” It’s a non-answer, I know, but once you’ve been doing this long enough, you’ve seen properties take off and you know what fans latch onto… It becomes a gut instinct, coupled with the availability and accessibility of the content. And sometimes we’re wrong, but sometimes we’re right.

“Creativity and great design are the basis, the nexus, the everything of what we do.”

But to answer your question, we specialise in genre content and have built an expertise in working with first time licensors; creators/developers/studios that have never been in the industry before. We educate and guide them through the process to make their IP successful in consumer products. We aim to have their brands expand their relevance and longevity; we help brands reach that next level.

You guys have strong ties with the horror space. There are plenty of horror films that enjoy critical acclaim and decent box office, but how do you assess brand potential?
There’s two main ways to gauge a need or desire for consumer products. One is to have a look at the amount of infringed product available online. That will tell you everything you need to know! The bootleggers are there essentially saying ‘Hey, there’s a market for this out here!’ And sometimes they’re not just selling some merch; they’re selling a lot of merch… That’s a great indicator that there’s a lot of demand there. Additionally, as many great horror IPs that are produced every year, we recognise that there are certain critical elements that will separate a horror franchise and a horror franchise that can drive meaningful consumer product sales and royalty generation.

So, in some ways – and without wanting to give them too much credit! – the bootleggers are shaping whole chunks of the industry. They’re the ones taking a risk on a brand – without taking the official risk!
Yes, and we could all do a better job with the bootleggers – including helping them become legit. Now there are a lot of bad actors, and we have no interest in rewarding chronic violators, but I’ve personally experienced three or four bootleggers that I’ve had to send cease-and-desists to whose artwork was amazing! I then said: “If you want to take a license, let’s talk” and they did! They’ve gone onto become incredible licensees who we still work with today.

“When you have great properties, you don’t have to sell anything – and I don’t feel like I’m ever selling anything!”

Amazing. And the second way to gauge brand potential?
The second is to look at the amount of mentions across social media platforms. Once you start scrolling through the hashtags and looking at the top posts, then you can start reading the comments. Are they asking for merch? Do they want toys? That’s incredibly useful.

Brilliant insight. Have you got an example of a brand you picked up that way?
Yes, one of the properties we manage is called Amanda the Adventurer. It’s an indie video game that was released by Dread XP. It looks like a pre-school game but it’s definitely not for kids! The storyline, while disturbing, makes an incredible game and it’s extremely well made. When the game was first released, it started trending on TikTok for two weeks straight… And not on ‘game TikTok’, but all of TikTok. The fans just blew this thing up, so we went after it and picked it up.

Brands that look child-friendly but definitely aren’t also brings us nicely to another one of your brands, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. I’m a big fan of the show, but it’s such a singular vision. How do you go about getting licensees and retailers switched on to its unique wavelength?
Well, when you have great properties, you don’t have to sell anything – and I don’t feel like I’m ever selling anything! Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared has been one of the most fun programmes I’ve ever worked on. It amassed a crazy amount of fans online through the first YouTube episodes, and the fanbase kept growing over the decade. The other interesting thing with this brand is that it has in-world product. I don’t know how much more merchandisable you can get!

Earlier this year, Hot Topic launched a great apparel line with Goodie Two Sleeves for Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. What helped get these guys on board?
Ultimately, it was easy to get the retailer on board with this one because they were fans. It’s easy to forget but buyers are real fans. I used to be a buyer at Hot Topic and every year for San Diego Comic-Con, we would camp out overnight in line for Hall H. Of course, the buyers are mostly going to take apparel first and then expand into other categories if that does well. With Don’t Hug Me, they tested one or two t-shirts at the end of 2022 and it blew up. Then we expanded with more retailers in the specialty realm.

And what has Blink Industries – the owners of the brand – been like to collaborate with?
They’re a first-time licensor and a lot of education and nurturing went into creating this programme. And that wasn’t just about ensuring it was right for the fans; it was also about what aligned with the creators’ vision for the brand. The creators of Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared are extremely hands-on – which is fantastic. It’s exactly what you’d want. They actually created some of the artwork that’s now being applied to product.

The biggest challenge here wasn’t getting people on board. It was making sure that what the licensor, the retailers and the fans all wanted would come together perfectly.

There’s lots of different strings you could pull at when it comes to crafting an apparel collection for this brand. Can you shed some light on the creative process behind the Hot Topic range?
Getting design artwork off the ground was a different process from the norm because the creators of the brand wanted to have a direct hand in it. As I said, they created artwork for the range, but would also specify their vision for what background colour should accompany the artwork, or the material style. Our licensee – Goodie Two Sleeves – was the perfect partner we could ever hope to have for this property. They are some of the most creative people in this space and understand the brand inside and out. They understand the humour, the weirdness and what the licensor meant when they said: “We want it to not make sense.”

It sounds like a tricky brief!
It does, but we understood what that meant! And Goodie Two Sleeves did too.. They knew what Hot Topic would need to sell this range to their consumers. They grasped what all sides needed out of this collection and made it a reality. They’ve been amazing.

Good work Goodie Two Sleeves! Looking ahead, what other areas would you like to expand Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared into?
One thing that’s coming soon is Phunny plush from Kidrobot. The characters are in sitting down positions and each one has something not quite right with them – keeping with the identity of the brand! And there are some additional categories coming down the road that I can’t talk about just yet… All I will say is to remember that there’s original music in this show.

Nicely teased!
Thank you! Ha!

You mentioned earlier that you were previously a Hot Topic buyer. Has that experience shaped any aspects as to how you work with brands today?
It’s shaped everything. Being a buyer is a bit like… Well imagine someone throws you into being a stockbroker at the highest level and says “Do it all now!” That’s what it’s like. I loved that job – the pace, the stress, the all-nighters… It was a blast and has meant that I can now speak the language of a buyer. And it’s quite a specific language. It centres on how to gauge if a product is doing well, because there are about 50 different metrics to look at. I can talk to buyers in a personal way and we can be more successful in bringing on licensees and scheduling releases… A large part of that comes from my relationship with retailers and being able to speak their language.

My last question – what role does great design play in the success of a licensed range?
We can all agree that the graphic designers and artists in our industry are true unsung heroes. If you find an amazing designer, don’t let them go. They’re rare – and they’re passionate about brands. We always like our licensees to tell us who the internal champion of our brand is on their teams. There are things you have to know about the brand in order to design something that will properly resonate with fans.

Creativity and great design are the basis, the nexus, the everything of what we do. Logo slapping? Not allowed. Style guide slapping? Absolutely not. Those things are the bane of our industry. Fans know it when they see it and they don’t appreciate it. In order to be truly successful, one must be a fan first.

Mandy, this has been fascinating. A huge thanks again.