Company Profile - Maxx Marketing

Taking it to the Maxx

Maxx Marketing has been around for 25 years and in 2018, established YuMe Toys to develop its presence in the mainstream toy market, as well as LMG to leverage its licensing expertise. Toy World caught up with Michael Kwan, CEO of Maxx Group, to find out about the company’s ongoing plans to raise its profile.

How would you describe the company to someone who isn’t familiar with it?

Although not everyone will know our company by name, most people are familiar with our products. If you’ve ever found a toy inside a box of Kellogg’s cereal, chances are that toy was conceived and produced by us. Historically, Maxx Marketing has been best known in the product-based promotional marketing space, working with blue-chip brands such as Kellogg’s, Danone, KFC and Coca-Cola for over twenty-five years, leveraging entertainment IP to increase sales, drive brand awareness and engage consumers.

Throughout the first twenty years of our business, the IP owners we worked with, including the likes of Warner Bros., Lucasfilm and Marvel, really appreciated the creativity we infused into our bespoke promotional toys, and that opened up the opportunity for Maxx to enter the consumer products space.

We did so by establishing YuMe Toys in 2018: our focus has been to acquire top licences, build our industry expertise and prove that we can compete with established players. We have been privileged to work with some of the highest-grossing media franchises – from the Wizarding World to My Little Pony, via Baby Shark and Stranger Things. Within a short time, our products have populated the shelves of all major retailers and eCommerce sites around the world.

Also in 2018, we made the decision to leverage our expertise in licensing to set up a full-service licensing agency, Licensing Matters Global (LMG), which helps blue-chip brands such as KFC, Peugeot and Harvard penetrate selected new product categories globally.

It’s the company’s 25th anniversary this year – how will you be celebrating this milestone?

Maxx’s 25th anniversary is a huge milestone for us. From our humble beginnings, working out of an apartment in Hong Kong, to serving some of the world’s most beloved brands on the promotions front; to then extending our operations via YuMe and LMG, it has been a humbling and rewarding experience. Earlier in the year we had a company celebration at which the focus was to thank and honour our award-winning, global team.

What was Maxx Marketing’s ethos when it first launched?

Maxx Marketing’s mission is to develop licensed products that engage our clients’ target consumers, delivering them into the market quickly and affordably. These principles have been at the heart of our corporate DNA since the very beginning. Our approach was recognized in 2000 when WPP plc, the world’s largest advertising conglomerate, took a majority stake in Maxx, entrusting us with its most prominent clients.

Today we create stand-out licensed products for both retail and promotional channels in over 70 markets worldwide.

How did the business develop into what it is today?

I’m working with a talented group of intelligent, passionate and innovative people. Our core leadership team has been with us since the early days. Everyone is committed to our mission to create ground-breaking products that excite consumers and maximize the ROI of our partners. Those basic principles and the team’s cohesion are the main factors that keep Maxx growing.

Our key strengths are our creativity and innovation, coupled with our ability to use trends and data to guide us towards consumer-centric, relevant products. Next would be our end-to-end capabilities, from IP acquisition all the way to global distribution, via product design and development. This enables our speed-to-market advantage, getting products on the shelf within 5-6 months after IP acquisition; something that larger corporate entities cannot achieve. We went from never selling a product in retail five years ago to a global reach of over 200K distribution outlets, plus our direct-to-consumer capabilities via eCommerce and sCommerce. Our annual output as a group is over one hundred million items, which creates significant cost efficiencies via economies of scale.

What’s the current operational setup in the UK and EMEA?

London is our EMEA HQ for our three business verticals: Maxx Marketing, YuMe and Licensing Matters. London has a tremendous talent pool, and the time-zone works wonders for communications with Asia and the Americas. Key personnel in the UK include our Group Global Creative director Gurdeep Bains, the Commercial director for our consumer products business Ken Goodisson and the head of Licensing Matters Global Felipe Noriega.

What are the key ranges you are focusing on this year?

Our award-winning Among Us product range continues to see enormous uptake and support across our retail and amusement channel partners. Netflix’s Stranger Things Upside Down Capsules have performed beyond our wildest expectations, requiring us to airship product to meet demand. And I’m pleased to reveal that our upcoming product launch under a new Disney licence has garnered overwhelming interest from our distribution and retail partners worldwide. For the first time in YuMe’s history, we’ll have a full-scale global programme covering all key markets.

What makes Maxx a great partner for licensors?

There are five key competitive advantages that we bring to the table: speed to market; flexibility; a turnkey solution model; cost efficiency and our global reach.

What plans do you have to build on the momentum in 2023 and beyond?

We are working to become a one-stop shop for premium IP, where our group of companies provides a turnkey solution to blue-chip licensors that sees us managing a property’s life across all categories; the key toys category via our YuMe division, all other consumer product categories via Licensing Matters and promotions via Maxx Marketing.

Additionally, we continue to add offices and warehousing to our network; we are striving to make our products and packaging more sustainable; and we are diversifying our supply chain to maintain our speed to market capabilities.

As we look to the future, we’ll continue to invest in premium IP, always prioritizing innovation, and we’ll start developing our own IP. Finally, we have plans to help bridge the digital and physical worlds through merchandise that brings famous NFTs to life. This 25-year milestone is just the beginning of the journey.