How to Collaborate Successfully in the Toy Industry: Insight from Zvee Geffen, VP, Licensing & Brand Marketing

EP050_09-10-24_Zvee Geffen

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Toy Business Unboxed, your gateway to the secrets of the toy industry. Here, Jason Hsieh, a toy entrepreneur and expert in the field. “Every product we develop is really inspired by some of the real life experience that we have with our son.” “60 percent of all toys last year were sold on Amazon.”

“Be passionate about it. Because it’s a road. It’s a journey.” “Like when you have an idea that you think is gonna somewhat change the world, make things better, I’d say go for it.“

Jason Hsieh: Hello, welcome to another episode of Toy Business Unbox. I’m your host, Jason Hsieh. Today, I’m thrilled to have a a seasoned expert in brand strategy and licensing, and currently is a driving force behind Liithos, an innovative IP company focusing on Gaming world. And today we’ll be have [00:01:00] very interesting discussion.

This is going to be unlike any other podcast we have done in the past. This is actually our first interview with someone that only a license. I think we have an impressive track record from doubling the licensing revenue, for major league baseball to leading top product launches for brands, many different brands in his career. And in today’s episode, we’ll like to talk about the idea behind his IP and his license and how he was able to build equities through very interesting partnership with other companies and how also collectible play a key role in establishing a lasting audience. So this will be a very interesting episode and thank you for joining us on today’s podcast.

Zvee Geffen: Happy too Jason. Good to see you.

Jason Hsieh: So first of all, can we first explain what does your company do exactly, because it’s vague. It’s virtual. And of course I can share some of the screen of if you have any product that you want to show off in screen, we can do that. If not, I can also, I have your website pulled [00:02:00] up ready to explain because it’s hard. It’s a very abstract, almost like an idea.

Zvee Geffen: It is. I think at its core, liithos is introducing some new intellectual property. A couple of new characters, one of which is RantCPU to the market and RantCPU, he’s our satirical take on artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is a topic that’s dominating headlines these days, it’s all over the place in current events and so we wanted to have a character RantCPU as you can see on screen. Who is a bit more light hearted and parodied and satirical and our angle with RantCPU is that, rant gets a lot wrong. So although he is an artificial intelligence character many times we refer to him as artificial incompetence because he misinterprets humanity and with that comes many of Rant’s personalities, comes many of Rant’s [00:03:00] products that we’re trying to launch into market and, come many storylines that I think we can introduce to consumers in effective ways. And RantCPU is the brainchild of Michael Mumbauer. Michael is the founder of Liithos. Michael’s background, he was a PlayStation executive for well over a decade. He actually co developed the last of us for Sony PlayStation. This massive hit in the video game space that spawned the critically acclaimed television series. But Michael saw problems on the video game landscape. Notably that it costs so much money and takes so much time to launch successful video game titles now. For a triple a game, you could have a team of dozens of people working on a video game development for years well over a six figure investment.

Often seven to nine figures to launch these video games. Yeah. So if they come out and they’re not successful right out of the gate, the [00:04:00] company has faced a lot of headwinds and financial difficulties. So what we’re trying to do at Liithos with RantCPU is we’re trying to introduce this character through consumer product collaborations and product launches in advance of our video game hitting market next year. So it’s not the easiest story to tell, but when you have a minute or two to lay it all on the line, I think people are understanding what we’re trying to do and the inroads that we’re trying to make from a product and licensing perspective.

Jason Hsieh: And from a product perspective, it couldn’t go beyond just a video game like we talk about pre interview, like there could be trading card, there could be toys, there could be other like items using, the license itself as well. So what is your vision or what’s your company’s vision in the future? What are all the different products you guys want to invest into?

Zvee Geffen: So I’ve been trying to launch RantCPU through trading cards and collectibles. And I actually have a few that I can demo here. We’ve had collaborations with Leaf trading [00:05:00] cards to put RantCPU on a trading card with Lionel Messi, for example. RantCPU on a trading card with Conor McGregor. This is my favorite one because it takes me back to the Mike Tyson’s punch out but RantCPU on a trading card with Mike Tyson getting knocked out. I

know it’s

Jason Hsieh: Really clever design as well. For those of you that are listening, please also like watch on YouTube if you want to see the actual design of the product we’re discussing in today’s episode.

Zvee Geffen: And. Thanks, Jason. And I’m happy to send you images as well that you could post online. But the reason that I wanted to introduce rant through collectibles is because my background prior to joining Liithos, I oversaw the licensing department at Major League Baseball Players Association. I was with the PA for six years. One of its primary business verticals is trading cards. It’s a very lucrative business for baseball players and a booming business. And then prior to the PA, I was at tops for six years as a brand [00:06:00] manager and developing baseball and soccer products. I have work experiences prior to that. But the reason I’m giving you that background is because I’ve developed a really unique and a deep understanding of the trading card industry. How it works, what people are looking for in products, value that they’re looking for when they’re opening products and some of the demographic that we’re trying to target with rant Certainly would overlap with trading.

Jason Hsieh: Okay, good to know. Interesting. Okay,

Zvee Geffen: so we were able to strike collaborations with leaf trading cards to feature ransom you with those, with their athletes that I just showed a couple of examples of we’re developing other trading card products right now. We have a digital collectible in the market with quid digital marketplace. That’s for a second intellectual property that we possess called no one is safe. Yeah. Without getting on too much of a tantrum because I know we want to stay with it within toys and RantCPU certainly is our biggest endeavor within the toy market. But no one is safe is a [00:07:00] universe. It’s a fictional universe that RantCPU creates for his own entertainment. And it’s ultimately, the path that I think we see for it as a company for video games is this atmosphere, excuse me, in this environment that combines Rant CPU and no one is safe. It’s a bit confusing, but it’s a lot of fun and it’s been very rewarding to take part in the launch of these brands.

Jason Hsieh: I also have the visual pulled up. It’s a very interesting design as well.

Zvee Geffen: Yes, exactly. And so hopefully this design gives you more of an idea. Again, if you took if you took a brand Venn diagram, Rant CPU, we’re trying to find a combination of Mad Magazine and the Simpsons, and South Park, so to speak. We don’t want to be as edgy as South Park. We don’t want to take it too far. We love the Mad Magazine realm that is parodied and satirical, but, targets 13 to 15 without being overly cruel.

Jason Hsieh: This could be [00:08:00] a very interesting card game or even a board game as well.

Zvee Geffen: Yes, we have that on the product roadmap, Jason, we’re developing a board game as we speak. Nate Murray, who’s our VP of world building has, fascinating work experiences in board games prior to joining Liithos and he and Nathan Wiseman are crafting a board game that we’ll be taking to market later this year as well. I think there’s a lot of potential for this character. There’s a space for it especially as within the realm of artificial intelligence, like I was saying, right when we joined, there’s so much uncertainty and ambiguity and concern about artificial intelligence, but what we really want to do is create something Funny around.

Jason Hsieh: For sure, for sure. And on the board game round, if you need any help, I do have some connection in the Kickstarter industry that I can refer you to some people to help. And after Kickstarter, if you need help with Amazon marketing, you know who to talk to.

Zvee Geffen: I do. Thank you.

Jason Hsieh: But this is a [00:09:00] very interesting concept. Who come up with all this crazy idea of the different kind of theme around the licensing?

Zvee Geffen: Yeah, there’s a lot happening. So Michael Mumbauer both intellectual properties are his brainchild. But we have an incredible team at Liithos. We have, Adam Clegg, who developed this battle royale style video game with H1Z1. We have Nate Murray, who I spoke about earlier. We have Gary Trock, formerly of TMZ Sports, writing editorial copy and funny quips. For our trading cards and our no one is safe cards. I actually, I can. Demonstrate a few of the, no one is safe cards.

Jason Hsieh: Oh yeah, please. Yeah.

Zvee Geffen: Here’s one that is one of my favorites.

Jason Hsieh: This is Keanu Reeves.

Zvee Geffen: This is Quinoa Heaves. This is our parody card of Keanu Reeves. We developed a meter to go on the bottom of our training cards. This is Good [00:10:00] Guy Meter, and as you can tell, it’s completely full. But, these are funny. These are all from Gary and his team. You have Rant CPU on the back. They’re trying to tie Rant CPU with the No One is Safe collectibles. Also, this one I think is very funny, but Spicy Meatball. So when Mario takes his mask off this is our interpretation Mario there’s great stuff on the back. There’s the characters, strengths and weaknesses, but we’re, so we’re creating these fictional characters around current events or celebrities and just having a lot of fun with them. And I think that sort of dynamic really works within collectibles. And that’s why I wanted to leverage my work background and introduce some of these products within those spaces.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah. And I think one of the strategy you guys doing really good is like collaboration. This is something that not just people like you that own a license, but also for other toy business to learn from because collaboration [00:11:00] across different industry. This is how we can really grow our business as a whole, regardless of what type of industry in either toys or video games, which is board games.

Can you share a little bit about your experience as far as collaboration? First of all, how do you identify who to collaborate with and how do you start with that negotiation?

Zvee Geffen: Yeah I think. In launching new intellectual property. I think collaborations, from my seat and my vantage point are critically important because they lend legitimacy and brand equity to intellectual property that might be missing it. That’s why I thought this collaboration with leaf was so important because, not only are we getting incredible athletes on our cards, but we’re getting the leaf brand name similar with quid and the no one is safe digital collectibles that are in market. Now we’re getting a market leader and digital collectibles.

We’re generating brand awareness and market penetration with their [00:12:00] audiences. And so I think those types of collaborations are really important to try to build trust in your brand and you certainly awareness for intellectual property. So we have another trading card product that I’m building and soliciting right now should be in stores. But it’s a no one is safe branded card product and one of the collaborations that we’ll unveil as part of that product are with CGC, as a trading card greater among others, they have a comic book division as well. And others, but it’s a collectible greater. So for example, if you send in a rant CPU or a no one is safe card, they’ll assess its condition. They’ll see if it’s perfect and they assign it a number grade one through 10 and they put it in a plastic slab and then you can have it in your collection. And the higher the grade, the more valuable the card

Jason Hsieh: are you going to turn it into NFT as well?

Zvee Geffen: We’ve done some NFTs with on the Hedera blockchain. So we have some [00:13:00] Hedera packs in market. The NFTs have been really they’ve been turbulent from a market perspective.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, it was like really hot in the beginning when it come out, everyone’s Oh this is like a future, but then it’s crashes and no one really talk about it anymore. I don’t know what’s going on.

Zvee Geffen: So I think what happened, Dapper Labs and TopShot, right when the pandemic hit back in 2020, they were the first into market with these speculative NFT NBA packs. They did a terrific job of passing value on to their collectors and generating a market and awareness for NFTs. In 2020, no one even, no one knew what NFTs stood for.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah,

Zvee Geffen: I remember working at the Players Association during that time and, trying to understand non fungible tokens, what that market was and what it could become. And dapper had such market penetration and awareness that everyone flooded to dapper labs and top [00:14:00] shot. Because if you could, people would wait in virtual lines. And if they got a pack of top shot and FTS, you could resell the pack or its contents and make money off of it. If you got one, you could make 50 to 200 bucks in your sleep, like within an hour. As long as you were lucky enough to win this lottery.

But what that did, and this is one of the nuances of collectibles. It brought so much demand to the market. And then dapper labs and top shot, they increased supply and supply to where it outweighed demand and then there was a crash in NFTs, but, there are still digital collectible collectors as well as NFT collectors, but a lot of that speculative interest from the beginning where it really did a bell curve is flooded out of the industry because it’s not easy money anymore, but there’s still, hundreds of thousands of people that believe in NFTs and digital collectibles in the long [00:15:00] run.

Jason Hsieh: I see. And with what you do, because you are like in so many different industry all at the same time, I think your background is very interesting. And one thing I also want to talk about, I think that’s very relevant to the people in the toy industry, is to negotiate with a licensor, like yourself, that is trying to, maybe they want to secure a license from you and maybe create a toy using the license.

What would be the piece of advice that you can share? As much as you are willing to share to other toy entrepreneur like myself, that’s looking to potentially get a license or negotiate a license deal?

Zvee Geffen: Yeah. I think that’s a great question. And it’s one that I’m still trying to figure out myself, Jason, there’s so much nuance and to licensing a new intellectual property. And I think what everyone has to understand me included. is that many times the leverage is not on the side of the new intellectual property. You can try to [00:16:00] negotiate favorable terms. You can try to negotiate guaranteed minimum royalties, but before you counter terms too hard or too aggressive, I’d encourage everyone, if you’re sitting with a new IP, and this is just my perspective, I’m sure there are counterpoints as well, but I’d encourage everyone to do the exercise.

If I counter too aggressively, am I going to be really disappointed if this person walks away? And if the answer is yes. I would not counter too aggressively because there, as much as I believe in RantCPU and no one is safe, our team is incredible. Liithos is incredible. We’re building something massive, but there’s a lot of competition. People, new ideas. Are a dime a dozen. Not saying they’re all good, but there are alternatives. So I would just ask yourself that question before you counter too aggressively and trying to negotiate terms or guaranteed minimum royalties. Sometimes just having a deal, even if you don’t get any dollars up front, [00:17:00] just having a deal where it looks like a collaboration or where you’re building an audience from someone else’s existing audience. Those are tremendous assets that I’d encourage people not to overlook.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah. And I think one thing I also like to share from the, like brand owners perspective is like the license or the IP you are trying to secure need to, in some way or form kind of align with a core mission with a company. As well, right? Otherwise, you don’t, you didn’t just get like random IP because you want to get them and like your customer is probably not going to relate to that as well.

Zvee Geffen: No, absolutely. You want to find, you want to find the right partners, people that align with your interest and mission. The interesting thing about rant CPU is that he can work in many different industries and spaces. Just because he’s an artificial intelligence, he’s quirky, he misinterprets a lot of things. So I think that gives me a lot of creative liberty in terms of the industries that I can look for collaborations in. I can look within apparel, I can look [00:18:00] within hard goods and accessories video games.

Jason Hsieh: Education as well. I think we talked about it pre interview.

Zvee Geffen: Actually, that’s how we, yeah, that’s how we met at the licensing expo. And we talked about RantCPU potentially as an educational tool. And we can do that. RantCPU is a character that has that can appeal to a variety of different audiences. But you also want to assess. Obviously those potential partners and whether or not they’re appropriate fits for your brand and what they’re trying to do.

Jason Hsieh: Of course. And one of the approach that your company take is a little bit different path. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looked like you guys are really focusing on product collaboration, which is good, but I think other licensing or licensure, I know they don’t really focusing on that as much. What is your strategy around that as far as like focusing on product first approach?

Zvee Geffen: I think it’s a two pronged answer. One, a product first approach allows us to introduce Rant CPU to market and allows us to [00:19:00] introduce Rant CPU to multiple markets. Across collectibles oh, we have a comic book as well. Rant CPU comic book is being distributed by Scout Comics and should be in stores. That’s another opportunity to introduce our character to a different customer segment. So if you take NFTs, if you take trading cards, if you take comic books, if you take board games, we’ve been starting a lot of small fires and trying to have the small fires converge with one another and build up market presence within this collectibles realm. And then the next big step for me where I want to see rant CPU, I’m really looking for a toy partner just because I think it makes so much sense for that demographic. This is an intellectual property that has so much potential appealing to kids. So much potential from a personality perspective. He can be confused, he can be happy, he can be jubilant he can be angry and frustrated. And when [00:20:00] I think of skew extensions and toy possibilities, it’s endless which I like from a product standpoint.

Jason Hsieh: For sure. That’s like I talk about maybe that’s like education opportunity, like making different characters of previous president, previous famous, like people in the history.

Zvee Geffen: So that is exactly what we’ve done. So I have a couple of these where these collectibles where rant is cosplaying as different Celebrity. So here’s one. This is bat rant. You got it. Rant CPUs take on on Batman. We’ve got, this one I thought was great. Captain Rant Sparrow.

Jason Hsieh: That is a really fun design too.

Zvee Geffen: We’ve got just a, an incredible graphic and visual team that is able to pose rant CPU and all of these poses. Here’s, I was just had another one, rant 1776 that looks like a founding father and he has a top hat on his head, just during the American revolution. [00:21:00] So there’s endless opportunity to collaborate and to create compelling product lines.

Jason Hsieh: Totally, yeah. I guess I want to step back and go back to your journey of bringing, and first of all, how long has RantCPU been around? How many years now?

Zvee Geffen: Just over a year, just over a year. So I joined Liithos at the beginning of this year, at the beginning of 2024, I’ve spent the last nine months, developing trading card products, negotiating the deal with leave, negotiating the deal with quid. My colleagues have been getting video games into market with rant CPU. By the way, that’s an area of the business that I’ve overlooked so far in the conversation. But we have Clickbait, which is an interesting game on Steam that I’d encourage viewers and listeners to check out. It features RantCPU. We have another game releasing imminently within the next day or two on Steam and Android. And Hopefully on apple. But we’ve been hard at work on in a number of different business verticals, and [00:22:00] it all does tie into Michael’s vision of Liithos being a transmedia company. We’re trying to expand the physical realm, the video game realm and the NFT realms that we have, an all encompassing product suite.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, and since this is a fairly new, IP, what has been the biggest challenge that you have faced in getting your word out there or building up the name recognition?

Zvee Geffen: Sure. It’s probably exactly what you think. It’s market awareness for RantCPU. And then trying to get others licensees to take a plunge on a new intellectual property. A lot of conversations, as you might expect people want a proof of concept or they’re looking for numbers, whether they be marketing metrics or social audiences that you’ve developed. And I understand that. Certainly people want proof that what they’re dealing with has potential. But creating that always takes some people taking [00:23:00] a plunge. And that’s why I think some of these collaborations have been really successful for us because we can point to leaf trading cards. We can point to scout comics. We can point to steam, the video game engine, as people who have, taken a plunge with us and developing RantCPU and introducing him to market and then hopefully building up these metrics so that people are interested in new endeavors down the line. So toys, apparel and future collectibles.

Jason Hsieh: Do you have any piece of advice for someone that’s also looking into maybe building some equity in their own brand, either if it has to licensing or through collaboration that you guys are doing any word of advice there?

Zvee Geffen: Yeah. Just, ride through the highs and the lows. You have. Almost on a daily basis, you feel the highs of a successful collaboration or an email that comes across your desk that, indicates favorable support and then you [00:24:00] also experience lows. Someone that you thought may have been close to a deal that steps away from it or, not generating marketing awareness that you thought that you would hit. As we’re introducing these new intellectual properties, it can be a bumpy ride because you’re trying to develop something from the ground up and that’s what we’re trying to do at Liithos as well. But you find the right partners and you find people that you’ve worked with. Prior work stops that believe in your work or that trust you and you can get a little bit of leeway and then you can take that leeway and leverage it into successful product launches.

Jason Hsieh: And as far as I know we talk about toy industry a lot because that’s what the show is about and what kind of product you want to develop, by collaborating with other toys?

Zvee Geffen: That’s so good. So I really want to rant CPU, Mr. Potato Head. That’s exactly where I want to go. Okay, so I’ll show you another visual. So we have rant [00:25:00] CPU exhausted. So yeah. Imagine that base, that monitor of rant, and then you buy an extra face that you can pop in, so then rant CPU anxious and then rant CPU angry, I think that has so much potential across hard goods and toys, it’s just, it’s a figurine, it’s exactly like a Mr. Potato Head, if you buy, a 20, 20, Rant CPU and within the box, you get four different faces and you can mix and match them and make your own. I’m dying for a partner that’s willing to take that jump with me. And I think it

Jason Hsieh: I see. I see. I see. Yeah, that’s actually a fun idea,

Zvee Geffen: right?

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, it’d be very fun ideas.

Zvee Geffen: Yeah, we could have some fun with that. Those are conversations that I’m having at events like a licensing expo and brand licensing Europe.

Jason Hsieh: I see. Got it. And as well, approach toward the end of today’s interview what excite you the most about the future, [00:26:00] about the company you work for and all the different IP you’re currently working on?

Zvee Geffen: I think that really has the potential to create waves within trading cards. And then once we do that then I think the sky’s the limit because it opens up additional either licensing or collaboration opportunities. Also, as I mentioned a few minutes ago the light bite game rant CPUs light bite will be out depending on the platform that you’re on. And I think that is a great exposure to rant CPU and a young kids audience, women’s audience that we haven’t yet developed a product for.

So I’m really excited about that as well. And then just generally building awareness for this intellectual property that I believe in and that I think has roots. Dialing into work coming, opening up my computer every morning. I’m excited to see what’s come in overnight and what we might be able to leverage in the following days or weeks.

Jason Hsieh: I see. I see. Thank you so much for [00:27:00] being on the show. Where can people find you?

Zvee Geffen: Let’s see. You can find me on X. I’m at the the real no, I’m at Zvee in LA on X. You can find Liithos across all sorts of social media. L I T H O S. We’re on Instagram. We’re on LinkedIn. We’re on Facebook. And you can find Rant CPU on Instagram and X. So a number of different outlets where you can, see us experience Rant CPU and see what we’re building.

Jason Hsieh: Got it. Yeah. Thank you so much for being on the show.

For the listeners. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of toy business unboxed. We really hope you enjoy today’s conversation and find it insightful and inspiring. If you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform. So you never miss the episode. We really appreciate your support and would love it if you could leave us a review and share the podcast with your friend and colleague.

For more resource, tips and latest update in the toy industry. Visit our website at [00:28:00] toy-launch.com, join the conversation and connect with us on social media using hashtag #ToyBusinessUnboxed. We’d love to hear your feedback and suggestion for future episodes. Until next time, keep innovating, keep creating, keep bringing toys to Joys. And this is Jason Hsieh signing off on toy business on box podcast, and I’ll see you in the next episode.