Sharing is caring for toy giants Hasbro and Mattel. As sales of physical toys continue to decline, the brands are leaning into outbound licensing, the practice of granting intellectual property to a third party, to bolster revenue.

While both companies have benefited from licensing deals with entertainment companies, they are increasingly outsourcing the production of toys as well—though the payoff from these deals is just beginning, James Zahn, editor in chief of The Toy Book, told Retail Brew.

Looking at their Q1 earnings reports released this week, the results show two companies in very different financial positions but with the shared problem of falling toy sales.

• The trend was most striking at Hasbro, where sales of consumer products declined 21%. This drop offset sizable gains in its entertainment and digital gaming divisions and contributed to a 9% drop in revenue.
• At Mattel, sales overall were down just 1%, but gross billings for dolls were down 4% year over year and 10% year over year for infant, toddler, and preschool toys, while sales of action figures, games, building sets, and other toys were flat.

The benefit of outsourcing the production of some toy lines through licensing deals is that it generates revenue but with fewer costs, Zahn explained.

Keep reading here.—AV

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Forget Valentine’s Day—Mother’s Day is one of the busiest holidays of the year for flower delivery company UrbanStems, which is planning to deliver 13 million blooms this year.

Ahead of the holiday, UrbanStems is growing its same-day delivery service, which was previously available in Washington, DC; New York; and Los Angeles, to four more metro areas—Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, and Chicago—with the help of Walmart’s white-label delivery service, Walmart GoLocal.

UrbanStems announced in January that it had secured $5 million in Series C extension funding to expand its same-day delivery to new cities. UrbanStems CEO Meenakshi Lala told Retail Brew the company’s strategy has pivoted over its 10 years in business, especially as it grew and scaled nationwide with next-day delivery. In the last couple of years, it’s been more focused on its original ethos around the speed and reliability of same-day delivery.

Keep reading here.—EC

When hair-care brand Crown Affair officially debuted in January 2020, it had what seemed to be endless marketing opportunities ahead of it.

“We had this whole marketing calendar that was all about IRL,” Elaine Choi, president of Crown Affair, told Marketing Brew.

Then, as we all well know, Covid hit, bringing many of those opportunities to a halt. Founder and CEO Dianna Cohen asked how the brand could pivot, and Choi suggested she set up her tripod and get on camera—something Cohen says she had never done before.

Keep reading here on Marketing Brew.—KH

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