The ever-expanding Funko empire grew even larger in 2017, when they acquired Loungefly. The two companies pair nicely, with Funko specializing in stylized vinyl figures inspired by various brands across the pop culture landscape, and Loungefly taking the same license-heavy approach with chic backpacks for kids and collectors alike.
At New York Comic Con 2022, the Funko booth impressed, as it always does, with a “Frightmare on Fun Street” theme, complete with costumed employees in zombie makeup handing out candy, all while a variety of rare and exclusive Funko and Loungefly products were shown off and sold to lucky attendees.
As part of Screen Rant‘s visit to the Funko/Loungefly attraction, we spoke with Ilana McBride, Loungefly’s Director of Marketing and Social. She discusses the partnership between Loungefly and Funko, the broad swath of wildly varying licenses that have come to define both companies, and she even teases some of their plans for 2023 and beyond.
Ilana McBride on Loungefly’s Partnership with Funko
Screen Rant: I was chatting about this before, but how many are you guys at now? How many of the little guys are there?
Ilana McBride: Of the bags or the Pops? I have a ton of Pops, but that was before I joined Loungefly. Now, my Loungefly has grown more than my Funko collection. I probably have 180 Pops. And I have maybe 300 Loungefly bags.
That’s almost one for every day of the year!
Ilana McBride: Some are just art. You’re not gonna use them, they’re just art at this point.
They really are gorgeous. I see some of them and they’ve evolved so far beyond. Just about the Pops, I remember when they were first starting out, and they’re so much more complex now.
Ilana McBride: With Mrs. Potato Head, you can change her whole mood and give her glasses. You’ve got coin purses, there’s a lot going on. Our Black Adam bag lights up! There’s always a trick.
Tell me about the cooperation between Funko and Loungefly.
Ilana McBride: What I love the most, being lead of marketing is, we get so much support from Funko. Loungefly didn’t have this booth at NYCC in the past. We didn’t have anything remotely like this! But the partnership has become… They ask, what does Loungefly want to do for this? How can we incorporate you guys? That partnership has been great. Even from a product standpoint, they’re like, “We know this is going to be a hot item, what do you think about turning it into a bag?” We might have a totally different audience for it, but we can do it in a way that will cater to different audiences.
A great example is our Pop by Loungefly Haunted Mansion collection that we have here. The hardcore Disney fans love Haunted Mansion. I know Funko fans do, too. But having it in a Pop style, or having the ghost in a Pop style, really shows the marriage between Funko and Loungefly without having to modify product in a sense that doesn’t make sense for either customer. From a marketing perspective, it’s a really great marriage between the two.
What I notice is, some of them really do veer away from the traditional Pop style. Is there a concern about doing your own style away from that?
Ilana McBride: No, our creative team is insane, as you can probably see! They’re always pushing boundaries, and they work with the licensors (licensees?) to do our own art. We have top-tier artists. Artists who have their own booth at these conventions. We hire them to reimagine some of these characters in a way we know will still be okay with Disney or any different licensors. They trust us. That’s what separates us. We have this credibility that Funko helped give us. We’re always veering, but for good, to make us stand out.
You’ve got Disney, Star Wars, all that family-friendly stuff, but you also have Hellboy and other R-rated stuff. I was chatting with someone earlier and said, “I’d buy a Miami Vice Funko,” and they told me, “They have those!”
Ilana McBride: There’s always one! People always ask, “have you made this bag?” There’s been one. If we haven’t made it, it’s because of some other licensing reason we didn’t make it yet.
Is there a concern that you’ll go too far and then Disney will be like, “Hey! Watch it, you!”
Ilana McBride: Totally. We get presented with new licenses that we discuss. Is this gonna be good for the brand?
Where’s Hellraiser? Where’s my Pinhead?
Ilana McBride: I can’t say anything about that… Can’t say… But we are expanding more and more, pushing more and more. We love Disney, we do a lot of Disney, but we also do many more. We have a ton of new horror coming. We have a ton of anime coming. We have a lot of music coming in 2023. So, we definitely push a little bit further and further. But I don’t think we’re ever fearful that we’ll go too far, because it’s just not in our brand identity to go too far in one direction or another.
These bags disappear in minutes. They’re selling out as fast as Pops.
Ilana McBride: People get very upset. We talk to Funko, and they go, “We go through this all the time.” We’re learning. A good example is the Ghost Mickey bag, it’s totally sold out.
It’s adorable.
Ilana McBride: We had tons of them! I thought, “I’m sure we have enough of them,” but they sold out in about two minutes. It has been pretty amazing to see that they sell out so quickly. I attribute it to our creative team, the product development team, my marketing team… Loungefly didn’t have any marketing until about two years ago. Once we started marketing, we saw what happened. So I applaud my team for all the work they do. We can see the changes. Now the rest of the company is modifying, doing what Funko has been doing for years now.
Will there be more kinds of bags, like messenger bags or other bags like that?
Ilana McBride: We just announced that in 2023, we’ll have more unisex styles in a new line. We’ll have some larger size bags, we’ll have some messengers, slings, things for working people… People say, “I don’t have a bag for my computer, or my equipment!” We keep that in mind, while still letting people wear their fandom on their sleeve, and still getting the innovation and quality and style that Loungefly brings… But in this new line! There’s a lot coming in 2023.
How do you guys go about choosing what licenses you pursue?
Ilana McBride: We look at the market, we look at what people are asking for, we look at search terms and things like that. If people are searching for a Loungefly that we haven’t made, we start going, “Okay, we should see if this is something we want to go after!” So we either go after them, or, more and more so, they come to us. Part of the marriage with Funko was getting access to all these new licenses. In 2023, we’ll also have licenses that they’ve been doing for a long time, with food and retro, that we’ve never really done. We’re going to start entering into that now that we’ve made a name for ourselves. There’s very exciting stuff on the way.
The future definitely looks like it’s in your corner. You know exactly what you’re doing and I feel like the brand gets more trusted and beloved every year. That doesn’t often happen in the very volatile fandom culture that we deal with.
Ilana McBride: Honestly, a lot of that comes from the longevity and credibility of Funko.
