Proving ground
Hollie Holmes began her career working in sales, but her childhood passions for branding, packaging and design led her down the licensing path. In 2005, she landed an opportunity to break into the toy industry at Mattel, where she spent the next 15 years honing her craft, setting up licensing deals and entertainment partnerships for iconic kids brands such as Barbie, American Girl and Hot Wheels.
Building the portfolio
Following some private consulting work and a two-year stint as global head of licensing at PlayMonster, Holmes moved to Moose Toys in May. Her remit is to accelerate growth and double the Australian toyco’s licensing business by executing a new strategic plan to increase its licensed portfolio and expand its in-house IPs into new categories.
With experience in every category of the toy aisle, Moose is known for producing experiential products that deliver an interactive unboxing surprise for kids, such as its Magic Mixies plush and Beast Lab action figures. “[Moose] is ready to invest money into getting new licenses,” says Holmes, who is competing hard to acquire several new ones for 2025 and beyond that have the potential to spark the same kind of mass kid appeal as the company’s existing licensing portfolio heavyweights, which include Bluey, Octonauts and Fall Guys.
In the short term, she is managing and finalizing several as-yet-unannounced licensing deals for products launching next fall that were put in play by her predecessor Menal McGrath.
Scrappy attitude
Holmes’ ultimate goal is to ensure that Moose is a shortlist contender for any high-awareness kid-skewing license that becomes available. She notes that competition for the limited number of evergreen IPs in the toy market is at an all-time high, especially as production pipelines recover from the impact of the 2023 writers and actors strikes in the US.
As a smaller, best-in-class toyco, one of Moose’s key advantages is that it can hit the market quicker than competitors such as Mattel and Spin Master because there’s less red tape involved in its toy design process and global distribution network, she says. “I think my [combined] experiences at Mattel and PlayMonster have set me up nicely to create a solid vision that maximizes Moose’s presence with our potential partners.”
This story originally appeared inĀ Kidscreen‘s February/March 2024 magazine issue.