Company Profile - Playtime PR

A perfect ten

Playtime PR, the multi-award-winning Toys & Games industry PR agency, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Lesley Singleton, founder & CEO of Playtime PR, tells Toy World how the communications industry has changed over the years, the achievements she’s most proud of, and why she’s keen to keep making lives more playful.

When you set up Playtime PR 10 years ago, did you think you’d be where you are today? Has the agency’s development followed the path you thought it would?

In all honesty, our launch back in 2014 was somewhat naïve! I had three or four toy brands to play with, no financial backers or investment and my business plan at the time was: “Well, what’s the worst that could happen?” I had an inkling there was an appetite for something fresh in the toy marketing space, but I also had a hunger to create a genuinely flexible working solution for really good PR people. I’d met a lot of incredibly talented PRs who wanted proper flexibility in their careers, and I figured I could build something that suited them and therefore benefitted clients who wanted fantastic (and happy) senior talent working on their business.

As for the way things have developed, every year I pinch myself. Playtime has certainly pulled its socks up from a business perspective. Our 17-strong core team is headed up by myself and our phenomenal director of Strategy & Creative, Ceriann Smith, and we’re supported by a stellar management team of three who oversee all the day-to-day running of the client accounts and teams. Evolving from doing everything myself (literally everything: I was even doing the bookkeeping for the first five years) and ensuring brands understood that they were hiring Playtime, not just me, was an adventure in itself. And of course, the pandemic helped our business model ‘mature’ in many ways as the virtual approach we’d taken for years suddenly became the norm for most of our clients and suppliers. Did I think we’d be where we are today? Yes, I think deep down I did - I just might not have had the balls to say it out loud back then.

How has the PR and communications space changed in that time?

The most significant change in the last 10 years has been the shift to values and purpose-driven comms, communications with heart but authenticity. Fluff and bandwagons have thankfully been replaced by accountability, and this has truly filtered beyond the comms and into how businesses are run today. While media and consumers are much more demanding when it comes to proof points around areas such as sustainability and diversity, so too are employees who simply won’t stay at a business which doesn’t have clear values to live and die by.

Can you tell us a bit about the team you’ve amassed and the skills and experience they bring to the table?

Playtime is all about good people, doing good work for brands they actually love. Hiring and looking after talented experts has been key. Playing to people’s strengths and creating roles where they only do the things they love, or work on brands they can truly get excited, about means they’re happy. Happy people are more creative, produce better work and genuinely care about the results, so our clients are the ones who ultimately benefit too. The individuals on the team have all worked in sectors beyond just Toys & Games, such as Fashion, Travel, Retail, Food, Pets, FMCG, Entertainment, Movies and so on. Playtime brings a wealth of experience and a variety of viewpoints to every brief as well as knowing the toy space inside out. We have specialists in hardcore media relations, experts in talent and influencer management, PRs whose pulses race at the thought of crisis comms and issues management, a wealth of strategists and an abundance of creatives. They know I’ll protect their sanity and will always put the team before a profit if needs be: if we’re being poorly treated by a client, we’ll call it out and walk away. We’ve only needed to do that a handful of times in the last 10 years, thankfully, but each time it’s reinforced our values and been absolutely the right decision. Doing so safeguards the team’s mental wellbeing as well as the culture of our business.

What have been some of your proudest moments from over the past decade?

Oh, there are so many proud moments to choose from. I always get a massive buzz when we land a front cover. From Sunday Times Culture for Bananagrams back in the early days, to as recently as December when we got the mighty Sylvanian Families on the cover of Stylist. That was amazing, the team did so well. It always makes me proud when they make things happen. We had a Shetland pony at a Christmas show once, and real mermaids at a launch event last year. These things sound ridiculous in the planning sessions, but when they happen and they’re relevant and push the needle, of course it’s a moment of pride. The award wins make me proud too, because that’s the wider PR industry recognising that we do good stuff (and those guys can be pretty brutal...)

Recently, the reaction to our new Libraries Board Game Club initiative has filled me with pride, especially as this is completely non-commercial (Playtime is funding the team’s time on it and the games companies involved are contributing towards the fulfilment costs). We had hoped the industry would share our passion for wanting to make games more accessible for more communities in this climate, but the feedback from games companies has been even better than anticipated. Really heart-warming, actually.

Recently, the reaction to our new Libraries Board Game Club initiative has filled me with pride, especially as this is completely non-commercial (Playtime is funding the team’s time on it and the games companies involved are contributing towards the fulfilment costs). We had hoped the industry would share our passion for wanting to make games more accessible for more communities in this climate, but the feedback from games companies has been even better than anticipated. Really heart-warming, actually.

I’ll admit I also get a rush of pride when I think about the toys and games brands that have trusted us over the years, from legendary household names including Sylvanian, Tamagotchi, Rubik’s, Orchard Toys and Top Trumps to early work with excitable start-ups and inventors who’ve gone on to become massive successes (I’m looking at our 10th birthday twin here, Big Potato!) I’m proud that we’ve played a significant role in the growth of some of today’s major players such as IMC, Zuru and Moose, and I never take it for granted that any company in this industry hands us their brief.

How important are the relationships you have with your clients? Can you tell us about any upcoming campaigns or activations for 2024 that you’re involved in?

The relationships are hugely important. The whole team plays a role in ensuring they are strong, mutually respectful and happy, and I love having check-ins with the clients to see how business is going, what they’ve

got on the horizon and such like. That’s why I enjoy Toy Fair season so much, for all the facetime and chats and catch-ups. As for what’s in store this year, my lips are sealed by more NDAs than I can shake a stick at, but I did return from Nuremberg very excited by a number of toys and games we’ll be sharing with the world later this year and into 2025.

If you could share one single piece of advice for anyone looking to get into Toys & Games PR that you’ve discovered since founding Playtime, what would it be?

Keep playing with everything. You can’t know how to market a toy or game if you only play with that one toy or game. Get to the shows and fairs and play, look for the similarities in mechanics or themes or characters, learn the trends. Don’t stop playing.

What big challenges and opportunities do you think the marketing/comms/PR landscape is facing at the moment?

The things that are the biggest challenges are also the biggest opportunities in the comms landscape right now: the rise of AI, the economic climate across all sectors and the demand for proper accountability over lofty claims. All three are fuelling creativity and driving deeper thought and the need for insight-led solutions, which keeps the brain whirring and the outputs even fresher and more innovative than previous years. It’s an exciting time.

What do you think the next 10 years holds for Playtime PR?

Well, for a brief time there, we were quite looking forward to being in charge of arranging the toy industry charter flight to New Orleans! But seriously, we’ll continue creating playful and impactful comms campaigns for some of the biggest and smallest toy brands in the world. We’ll keep striving to innovate what we offer whilst collaborating with other brilliant agencies and suppliers to create meaningful, sales-driving activations to suit every budget. And we’ll continue to be the best business for our team and broader communities by living and breathing our ‘Making lives more playful’ mission. It’s also a personal goal of mine to develop a piece of software which magically places Lego bricks beneath the bare feet of LinkedIn post authors who a) are “Delighted to announce”, b) declare “That’s a wrap” on anything that isn’t a film shoot or c) start with “And just like that…”.

How are you going to be celebrating Playtime’s 10thanniversary?

Team Playtime is having a weekend away together in the countryside. We’re staying in a big house like the one from The Traitors and getting dressed up for a murderfree dinner. I’ll make sure our social media guy captures some highlights that we’ll be ‘delighted to’ share on LinkedIn…

Is there anything else you’d really like our readers to know about Playtime, your anniversary or the industry in general?

This industry is close-knit and incestuous, and we’ve made a lot of lovely friends over the last 10 years. What I’ve valued hugely is the relationships we’ve built with a lot of other PR agencies operating around these parts: special group hugs go out to those who consistently play nice and always have time for a sanity check, including Charlie ‘Le Roo’ [Rougetel] at Big Top PR (with whom we share our 10th birthday), the legendary Julie Pittilla, Lianne Bertelli, Michele Bates, Caroline Fosbury and Ane Oleson.