How Bonkers Toys Built a Business on Digitally Native IP — with Lisa Wright and Julie Splendoria

Emily is still in Australia, so Andy and Jo continue their deep dive into the toy industry with two guests from Bonkers Toys — Lisa Wright, Head of Licensing, and Julie Splendoria, VP of Marketing. It's a conversation that traces the arc from Slither.io and JoJo Siwa's bow to the present day, and makes a compelling case that Bonkers saw the YouTube-to-toy-aisle pipeline coming before almost anyone else in the industry.

The origin story is a good one: Bonkers' CEO spotted the opportunity literally from the driver's seat on the school run, watching his kids obsess over Slither.io on their phones, and moved fast enough to be the first licensee on Ryan's World when YouTube creator toys were still being dismissed by retailers as a niche fluke. Lisa and Julie walk through how the team reads fandom — the science of views and subscriber growth, and the harder-to-quantify art of emotional hook and community intensity — and how that methodology has evolved as the landscape shifted from YouTube to TikTok to Roblox. The "playable props" strategy developed for Toys and Colors — seeding supersized versions of toys into content nine months before retail launch — is a standout example of how to build familiarity authentically rather than just blasting product placement.

The episode closes with a Q4 outlook: unboxing and blind box collectibles, the ongoing Squishies evolution, sports trading cards, and the PopMart-influenced kidult trend are all flagged as the ones to watch heading into the holiday period. Whatnot gets a mention as a platform to take seriously. And Jo reveals she's been holding a Pokémon card the whole time.