For The Toy Book‘s 2024 Licensing & Entertainment Issue, we caught up with six executives to talk toys, trends, and strategy ahead of this year’s recently wrapped Licensing Expo at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Now, we’re sharing extended editions of each Q&A here at ToyBook.com as part of our ongoing State of the Industry series.

In this installment, Russell Binder, President and Founding Partner of Striker Entertainment, talks brand-building, licensing, and entertainment.

Russell Binder: Access. Audience. Advocacy.

Access – How available is the property and how scalable is it (is it platform-specific, or platform agnostic?); Audience – Who is the core audience, the demo and psychographics, and how does IP and fandom play into their spending habits?; and Advocacy – early stage IPs in growth mode generally have very vocal audiences and fans that amplify the message.

The more powerful that collection of voices, the more Striker gravitates towards that energy. Fundamentally, we want to be passionate about the IP, we want to believe that it has the core attributes that lends itself to a wide range of products (including media), and we want to make sure that there is ideally a longer-term vision from the rights holder(s) so that our efforts aren’t truncated due to lack of additional content.

RB: I am confident in the pace at which the program is growing and with the partnerships we have in place. Our client [Scott Cawthon] has never been in a hurry and has always made creative and content decisions based on what he believes will be most respectful to the fans and on what will bring them closer to the property to enhance their enjoyment of it. We are not trying to win the “Largest Licensee List” award, rather, we are striving for the “Partnerships with Profound Passion for the Brand and the Fans” award.

We are looking forward to celebrating 10 Years of FNAF this August, introducing new games and experiences over the next 12 -18 months, expanding the international reach of the franchise, and ramping up towards what we anticipate will be an incredibly strong back half of 2025.

The brand is at a place where there is still a tremendous amount of room to add new fans but where we collectively ensure that the “Day One” fans are honored, excited, and nurtured.

RB: There are a few general notes that are worthy of mentioning, with a recognition that my answers are influenced heavily by the entertainment and gaming sectors. The first is a growing abundance of IP with shorter windows to capitalize on it (that plays true more to film and TV than to games that, with LiveOps, allows for a more sustained engagement with the IP). This means that IP churn is happening at an unprecedented rate and that traditional buying and manufacturing timeliness aren’t able to capitalize on unanticipated “moments” that capture the pop cultural zeitgeist.

Another challenge is that rights holders cannot simply stand on one delivery mechanism for their content. In order to have any kind of impact or scale, owners are going to have to employ a transmedia model and meet audiences where they are. That’s tough if you are a smaller company that doesn’t own your own entertainment, digital, and experiential ecosystem.

RB: This one is EASY to answer: To network with new names, faces, and companies that we haven’t had the luxury of working with while simultaneously fortifying and fostering the existing relationships that are the engine of our business and honestly what makes a career in this business most gratifying, at least to me.

A version of this feature was originally published in The Toy Book’s 2024 Licensing & Entertainment Issue. Click here to read the full issue! Want to receive The Toy Book in print? Click here for subscription options!