Moose Toys

Last updated

Moose Toys
Company typePrivate company
Industry
  • Toys
  • Entertainment
Founded1985;39 years ago (1985)
Headquarters Cheltenham,
Melbourne
,
Australia
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • Paul Solomon
  • Manny Stul (Chief Executive) and Jacqui Tobias (Director of Girl's Products)
Products
Website www.moosetoys.com

Moose Toys (or Moose Enterprises or Moose Creative Management Pty Ltd or The Moose Group) is an Australian-owned toy design, development and distribution company founded in 1985. Moose is headquartered in Australia, has over 600 staff and distributes to over 50 countries. [1]

Contents

History

In 1985, Moose Toys was founded by Brian Hamersfeld. [2] Later in 2001, Moose was acquired by Chief Executives Manny Stul, Jacqui Tobias and Paul Solomon. The company is based in Cheltenham, Melbourne, Australia [3]

From the 2000s to 2015, revenue for the company grew from $10 million to more than $900 million. [4]

'In 2011, Paul Solomon led a move to distribute Moose Toys products directly into US retail (which ends its distributor license with Canadian toy company Spin Master), starting with a collectible brand called "The Trash Pack". [5]

In 2014, Moose Toys launched the Shopkins toy line which later grew into a franchise in later years with spin-offs and other merchandise and relocated its main office to Cheltenham, in Melbourne, Australia. The brand in late 2014 also changed its logo design.

In 2015, at the 15th annual Toy Industry Association's Toy of the Year (TOTY) Awards ceremony held in New York City, Moose Toys' Shopkins Small Mart was awarded the '2015 Girl Toy of the Year' [6]

In 2016, Moose was recognised as Toy Vendor of the year in the US by Toys R Us. Target and Walmart [7] CEO Manny Stul also won the EY World Entrepreneur Year Award, and is the first Australian to do so. [8]

In 2016, Shopkins won girl toy of the year for the second time running for the Shopkins Scoops Ice Cream Truck at the 16th annual Toy Industry Association's Toy of the Year Awards. [9]

In 2017, Manny Stul was inducted into the Australian Toy Industry Hall of Fame. [10]

In 2018, Moose Toys acquired Worlds Apart as part of a European expansion. [11]

In 2019, The Moose portfolio continued to diversify as the business entered the preschool category with Kindi Kids, a Shopkins spin-off which features the popular Shoppies line of dolls as preschoolers. [12]

In 2021, Moose Toys was awarded with five wins at the Australian Toy Awards. Moose also expanded into the Canadian market with the launch of a hybrid direct distribution model for a strategic selection of new brands, including Akedo and Bluey. [13]

In 2022, Moose Toys was awarded a TOTY for Creative Toy of the Year - Magic Mixies.

In 2023, Moose Toys took home four awards at the Australian Toy Awards. [14]

Shopkins

Shopkins are a collectible line of figures based on The Trash Pack figures, designed, and developed by the Moose team in Melbourne, Australia.

Shopkins toys are miniature store item characters. Each Shopkins character is given a name, hobby, hang out, and BFF, intended to create an emotional bond for the collector. [15]

Each new series of Shopkins combines 140+ characters with playsets and accessories. As of December 2015, there are 420 individual characters. [16]

Originally released in June 2014, by December 2015 over 115 million Shopkins had been sold worldwide. Due to the toy line's popularity, it expanded into a franchise including licensed merchandise and spin-offs for the toy line (notably the Shopkins Shoppies line of dolls, Happy Places in which people can decorate homes with Petkins furniture, Cutie Cars which are miniature Shopkins cars, Lil' Secrets, a line similar to Polly Pocket, and Kindi Kids, a Shoppies-spin-off doll line for preschoolers.) [16] Paul Solomon credits his mother Jacqui Tobias, director of girls' products, for the idea of Shopkins. [3]

In December 2015, a one-of-kind glass Shopkin called Gemma Stone sold for $21,500 on eBay with all proceeds going to the Toy Industry Foundation. [16]

Other Product Lines

Moose Toys creates, manufactures, and markets toy brands across a number of categories, including action figure, plush, dolls, and so on. Most have a collectible component and include a sheet of other products within the toy line.

Recent Awards

Content

Animation

In 2014, Moose partnered with Pixel Zoo to create Shopkins animated content, including the webisodes. [57] For the launch of Shopkins, a series of animated Webisodes were created for the ShopkinsWorld YouTube channel (now MooseTube Squad). There have been 85 released, along with 6 original music video clips, and has gained millions of views. WildBrain distributes Shopkins content on their channels (including the WildBrain - Cutie Cartoons channel) and, in 2016, has also been placed on Netflix [58] amongst many other territorial stations globally. Moose also partnered with Universal to create 3 direct-to-video movies for global distribution. [59] In 2019, Moose also released a spin-off line of Shopkins intended for preschoolers, Kindi Kids, which was supported by a CGI animated series. In 2021, to promote the toys for Season 5, the brand was supported by a new-look 2D animated series for the series' 4th season. [60]

Moose also created Trash Pack cartoons which ended shortly near the end of the toy franchise in 2014. [61]

In 2016, to promote The Trash Pack's sequel, The Grossery Gang, Moose has done Grossery Gang cartoons which continue to amass views on YouTube. This content includes 3 mini movies and more than 35 webisodes. The first Grossery Gang animated mini movie was released on 28 July 2017 on YouTube to promote Series 3 of the toy franchise. [62]

In 2018, Moose released a digital-first series to support the launch of Treasure X. This 2D content spanned 3 years and continues on MooseTube Mania and the Treasure X Official YouTube pages. [63]

Further work cemented Moose in the boys' space in 2019 with Goo Jit Zu animated content. First releasing in 2019 and gathering over 120 million views on the 5 mini movies that have followed as of November 2021. Further to this, the content has also been placed on Netflix in English, French and German amongst other distribution platforms. [64]

In 2021, Moose announced their partnership with WildBrain on the brand Akedo. This digital-first series launched in June 2021 and is part of a larger partnership between Moose, Wildbrain and CPLG (Consumer Products). This series was brought to YouTube and Amazon Prime initially in both English and French, with wider distribution to come on additional platforms and in Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and Russian in 2022. [65]

Other

In October 2015, the first official Shopkins app was released to much success. [66]

Licensed Partnerships

Merchandise

Moose has licensed Shopkins for additional products through Bulldog Licensing in the UK, [67] The Licensing Shop [68] in the US, and Merchantwise in Australia. [69]

As of January 2016, 51 Shopkins licencees had been signed in North America, including apparel, construction, candy, games, and bedding. [70] In that same month, Shopkins partnered with McDonald's to release special edition Happy Meal toys. [71]

Toys

Bluey

On June 12, 2019, Moose Toys was named "Global Toy Master" (excluding Asia) for the Australian preschool series, Bluey. [72] Toys based on the show were released in November 2019 in Australia [73] and July (Target) and August (Walmart and Amazon) in 2020 in the U.S.A. [74]

Warner Bros.

Octonauts

Moose Toys partnered up with Silvergate Media to release a toy line to promote Octonauts's spin-off, Octonauts: Above & Beyond. [75]

Strawberry Shortcake

In September 2021, WildBrain named Moose the new toy partner for the relaunched Strawberry Shortcake franchise, with new toys being released for Early 2022. [76]

YouTubers

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References

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  53. 1 2 "Toy Fair's Hero Toys List Announced at Toy Fair 2020". 21 January 2020.
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  76. ↑ Milligan, Mercedes (9 September 2021). "WildBrain Bakes Up Fresh 'Strawberry Shortcake' for Today's Kids".
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