Hasbro UK & Ireland Manager David Henderson on Future Plans

Saturday, July 9th, 2016 2:08AM CDT

Categories: Toy News, People News, Company News, Interviews
Posted by: Va'al Views: 35,485

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Via the Toy News Magazine, we have a brief look into some market-speak from Hasbro UK & Ireland, concerning their future plans for that corner of the toy market. As expected, not much is really said at all by David Henderson, the recently appointed Country manager, but he does comment on the difference between US and UK markets, and vaguely talks about future plans; you can find extracts from the full interview - found here - below.

Reminder: Hasbro UK has already announced that it will not be participating in the London/UK Toy Fair.

Where are the areas of improvement for Hasbro in the UK and Ireland and how are you looking to tackle these?

The team has done a phenomenal job in all areas. The key for our team is to be relentlessly focused on driving our business, understanding our consumer and connecting with them across all possible touch points.

Simply put, we must not be satisfied with our current momentum and always be seeking out new opportunities to connect with our consumer.

[...]

Having moved to the UK from the US, what do you view as the key differences for Hasbro between both markets?

Simply put, there are many differences and many similarities, but that is only on the surface. I want to immerse myself in the culture, learn from my team, our retailer partners and the consumers.

I was born and raised in Canada and have lived in the USA for the past nine years. I have been fortunate to travel to and work in many countries and know that many differences exist, but the common bonds are also very strong. I can’t wait to learn more about these great countries and their people.

Credit(s): Toy News Magazine

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Re: Hasbro UK & Ireland Manager David Henderson on Future Plans (1804140)
Posted by King Kuuga on July 9th, 2016 @ 2:24am CDT

"What are areas of improvement?"
"We must not be satisfied!"

"What do you view as the key differences?"
"I've lived in Canada, America, and the UK."

he'd make a great politician.

Re: Hasbro UK & Ireland Manager David Henderson on Future Plans (1804163)
Posted by Prowl4 on July 9th, 2016 @ 7:30am CDT

David Henderson would want to get his finger out and start giving us waves past one and two!

Re: Hasbro UK & Ireland Manager David Henderson on Future Plans (1804672)
Posted by Evil Eye on July 11th, 2016 @ 3:54pm CDT

David Henderson eh? So that's the guy to blame for the atrocious distribution in this country.

(Lights torch)

Re: Hasbro UK & Ireland Manager David Henderson on Future Plans (1814946)
Posted by Va'al on August 13th, 2016 @ 1:36pm CDT

With the new Hasbro UK and Ireland appointment, as we reported a while back, it looks as though at least the brand Licensing & Publishing departments will attend the 2016 Brand Licensing Europe expo in London, if not the UK Toy Fair. The news comes from the event's site, here, which lists the following under Hasbro's exhibitor page:

About Hasbro Brand Licensing & Publishing
Hasbro is committed to leveraging its beloved brands, including TRANSFORMERS, MY LITTLE PONY, MONOPOLY, LITTLEST PET SHOP, NERF, PLAY-DOH, MAGIC: THE GATHERING and our newest franchise HANAZUKI to Create the World’s Best Play Experiences. At Brand License Europe 2016, Hasbro will continue to bring our stories to life across multiple mediums including entertainment, publishing and branded experiences. Hasbro will also showcase a successful range of High End Fashion from industry taste-makers, as well as a broad range of consumer products including Toys & Games, Back to School and Apparel & Accessories at this year’s show.
Product Categories (8)

Character & Entertainment > Character & Animation
Character & Entertainment > Digital Content/Gaming
Character & Entertainment > Film
Character & Entertainment > Music
Character & Entertainment > Performance
Character & Entertainment > Theme Park
Character & Entertainment > Toys & Games
Character & Entertainment > TV/Broadcast

Re: Hasbro UK & Ireland Manager David Henderson on Future Plans (1814957)
Posted by RAR on August 13th, 2016 @ 1:47pm CDT

Prowl4 wrote:David Henderson would want to get his finger out and start giving us waves past one and two!

They'd be better off waiting a bit longer to release things in the UK and then co-shipping wave 1 and 2 at the same time. then the wave 1 glut will not result in as much shelf hugging issues of over produced characters.

--------

I wonder if it was Hasbro in part wanting the last Knight robot mode images released so early as they wanted to show them to Licence holders to put on T-shirts etc..

As it seem likely that Transformers 5 is going to have a harder time making it's money especially in the US so they really need to not sleep walk through the merchandising like they did with Dark of the Moon to some extent and even more so with Age of Extinction.

They made a bit of a pigs ear out of selling the Dinobots to people for example.

I hope Hasbro has enough sense to not be signing any TRU exclusivity deals again.

Re: Hasbro UK & Ireland Manager David Henderson on Future Plans (1815115)
Posted by Shinkyuseishu on August 14th, 2016 @ 4:21am CDT

Once again we'll get close to nothing in France, especially in interesting Transformers toys line...

All true fans have to order overseas, thank you Hasbro!

Re: Hasbro UK & Ireland Manager David Henderson on Future Plans (1815117)
Posted by Stuartmaximus on August 14th, 2016 @ 4:31am CDT

Dr Va'al wrote:With the new Hasbro UK and Ireland appointment, as we reported a while back, it looks as though at least the brand Licensing & Publishing departments will attend the 2016 Brand Licensing Europe expo in London, if not the UK Toy Fair. The news comes from the event's site, here, which lists the following under Hasbro's exhibitor page:

About Hasbro Brand Licensing & Publishing
Hasbro is committed to leveraging its beloved brands, including TRANSFORMERS, MY LITTLE PONY, MONOPOLY, LITTLEST PET SHOP, NERF, PLAY-DOH, MAGIC: THE GATHERING and our newest franchise HANAZUKI to Create the World’s Best Play Experiences. At Brand License Europe 2016, Hasbro will continue to bring our stories to life across multiple mediums including entertainment, publishing and branded experiences. Hasbro will also showcase a successful range of High End Fashion from industry taste-makers, as well as a broad range of consumer products including Toys & Games, Back to School and Apparel & Accessories at this year’s show.
Product Categories (8)

Character & Entertainment > Character & Animation
Character & Entertainment > Digital Content/Gaming
Character & Entertainment > Film
Character & Entertainment > Music
Character & Entertainment > Performance
Character & Entertainment > Theme Park
Character & Entertainment > Toys & Games
Character & Entertainment > TV/Broadcast

We can but hope that they'll drop more images of TRypticon! as well as other figs....Broadside maybe?

Re: Hasbro UK & Ireland Manager David Henderson on Future Plans (1853647)
Posted by Va'al on January 22nd, 2017 @ 4:10am CST

Though Hasbro is not participating, as we knew, at Toy Fair UK 2017, there is a new article about the company and its franchises in the latest issue of Licensing Magazine (which you can view in full here). What we find inside are a number of licensed products for My Little Pony, Nerf and obviously Transformers for the upcoming year, from schoolwear to stationery, to easter eggs and books - but of particular interest is a new Panini-released bi-monthly comic featuring a new scenario not far from what we've heard about the next season of Robots in Disguise. Some speculation, however, might point towards a The Last Knight setting too, given that we are in a movie year again, and it would be odd not to have that publicity tie-in. So, some potential spoilers in the article below, and a short transcript beneath it!

The robots return to newsstands with stories that are set after the war between Autobots and Decepticon. The giant robots have left the earth and have returned to Cybertron, where they must reconstruct society that had been divided by thousands of years of conflict... from June 2017, the magazine will be available every two months in comic book stores and bookshops.

Re: Hasbro UK & Ireland Manager David Henderson on Future Plans (1853651)
Posted by Carnivius_Prime on January 22nd, 2017 @ 4:46am CST

Every two months? Man, I miss getting a Marvel Transformers comic EVERY SATURDAY MORNING! Will lkely buy it if's Last Knight. I enjoyed most of the movieverse strips in the Titan Publishing magazine over the years.

Re: Hasbro UK & Ireland Manager David Henderson on Future Plans (1853710)
Posted by Prime Nova on January 22nd, 2017 @ 1:22pm CST

The news yesterday reported this was a new Panini comic following the ones they have been producing since 2007 based on the Movies. But Panini UK don't make any movie comics - that was made by Titan UK. Panini gave up with Armada #9 which they never stated at all that it was cancelled anywhere.

Re: Hasbro UK & Ireland Manager David Henderson on Future Plans (1853868)
Posted by Stuartmaximus on January 23rd, 2017 @ 10:42am CST

Transformers Official Licensed Merchandise From London Toy Fair 2017
http://news.tfw2005.com/2017/01/23/tran ... 017-331403