Hasbro continues its successful LBE ventures with a treasury of brands
interview by Keith Miller
Matt Proulx, Hasbro’s senior vice president of global experiences, partnerships, and music, talks about where Hasbro is taking the world of location-based entertainment (LBE) by leveraging its wealth of renowned toy and game brands into multigenerational experiences.
Tell us about Hasbro’s goals in creating LBE venues based on Hasbro brands.
We’re in an experience economy, and social media has made it important to meet our consumers where they are. We must surround our consumers 360 degrees and then allow them to choose how they experience our brands, and these LBEs do that. It goes back to the roots of our businesses in toys and games. The reason Hasbro has been around for more than 100 years is that our brands move with people – from childhood to teens to young adulthood to being parents and grandparents. That legacy and that emotional connection passes to each generation. These experiences we’re building are a great way to further that emotional connection. The more customers experience our brands, the more likely they are to stay invested in them.
As we think about our business at Hasbro, we’re trying to develop concepts across the board and not just in theme parks. If you think about Monopoly Lifesized, it’s a new way to experience the brand in a way never done before, and it’s now in London and KSA. We’re expanding beyond theme parks, because these LBE sites don’t require quite the same time commitment, cost, travel, etc.
How are you using LBE platforms to reinvigorate legacy Hasbro brands such as Planet Playskool?
At Planet Playskool, the design intent is edutainment – a STEM/STEAM learning experience using our brands to deliver a cool, fun, unique learning experience. As mentioned, one of our superpowers is that we’re a multigenerational play company. We have legacy brands that have been around for decades and are cross-generational, so those LBE learning moments touch kids, parents, and grandparents as they enjoy the nostalgia of these legacy brands together. Then they’ll use our products at home to continue that edutainment.
What are the primary challenges of extending a Hasbro brand onto an LBE platform?
In every experience, we want to delight, surprise, and exceed our consumers’ expectations. If they say, “Oh, this is what I expected,” they’re not going to come back and won’t tell others to experience it. We always want to exceed expectations with experiences customers want to do over and over again.
With Nerf Action Xperience, for instance, we’re paying homage to the heritage of the brand. The appeal of Nerf products was that they made it possible to actually play sports like football and basketball indoors without breaking a window. Now, of course, we take it beyond that and expand the brands in these experiences and take them to places customers aren’t expecting.
The creative challenge is to remain authentic to the brand while building upon it – delivering a unique, compelling experience that’s different from what you can do at home. A successful experience will forge a strong emotional bond to the brand that motivates visitors to continue that connection, through return visits and product purchases.
Tell us more about how the retail component fuels the LBE business model.
We think people want to further these experiences with the toys and games when they return home. Everything we look to do is on a global scale. Remember that in some international markets many of these brands may not be well known, so the location-based experience becomes an introduction to and a gateway for the customer purchasing the brand products. We’ve even seen that happen with Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern in New York City. It’s not just for hardcore D&D fans. We’re seeing the uninitiated coming in and understanding more about the game and having a great time. The likelihood of them getting more involved in D&D is actually greater. In essence, the LBE helps create advocates of the brands.
Tell us about Hasbro’s interest in waterparks and resorts.
One thing waterparks deliver well upon is what I call the “shampoo methodology” of rinse-and-repeat. You go down a slide or you go in a wave pool, and you already have expectations of what you’re going to do. It’s very programmatic. In the same way some brands transformed the theme park experience, we want to do that in waterparks. So how do we now create competitive gamification in waterparks? If we want to create a competitive element between friends of who went down the water slide the fastest, how do you score that? Some waterparks say, “Oh we’re going to create great theming.” But does it really pay off, and are they really leveraging that expense to create a better experience for the guests? Our parks will. But I’m not free to mention any specific projects yet.
In the hotel and resort space, there’s the business traveler and weekend traveler – the older adult who wants to have a higher- end overall experience. Then there’s the family staycation within the drive radius of where they live. For the adult traveler, we thought about Monopoly and conceived a concept we call Monopoly Mansion – a five-star luxury boutique hotel. It’s a white-glove experience that’s lightly themed but highly inspired by the brand. For families, it’s the Hasbro Resort – a hotel and indoor waterpark – and other experiences within it.
The current indoor waterpark business model has been mostly built off non-IP brands. We are very excited about using our iconic brands in these resorts. Given the large number of brands in our portfolio, our ability to program waterpark resorts is just endless, and no one can really compete with us on that level.
What’s the secret of success for Hasbro’s Global Experiences Team?
My team is made up of consummate professionals willing to continually push the boundaries of where the industry is to where it can go. We’ve been able to open up theme parks, a hotel, restaurants, immersive theatrical experiences, and to identify partners excited to see where these experiences can go. These are people experienced in the industry and have learned from what others have done. While we push the boundaries, we still honor the past and our legacy. Our team also stands by our partners. Over the past five years, we’ve not lost one licensee, not even one partner. We’ve opened more than 125 experiences around the world in that time because we’re patient and focused on getting things built and keeping them open. •
Keith Miller has been mesmerized by theme parks and other attractions ever since his first visit to Walt Disney World as a child when he was afforded a visit to the utilidors beneath the Magic Kingdom. A communications major, he served as a freelance writer for Amusement Business weekly magazine for three years before writing for IAAPA’s Funworld Magazine and News Hub for 21 years, 17 of which as news editor. He’s been thrilled to have had the opportunity to travel across North America, Europe, and Asia visiting attractions and plans to spend the next few years traveling more than ever.
