Matthew Gibson discusses the incredible success of the licensing program at Oddballs

Matthew, you work for the amusingly named Oddballs. What’s your job title? And for those not in the know, what does Oddballs do?
I’m the Head of Partnerships and Licensing. I’ve been here for four-and-a-half years. I started off as a social-media executive, moved into sales, and progressed through the ranks – which is great because I’ve learnt the brand values and how to achieve success across different departments.

And for what is Oddballs best known?
Oddballs is best known for its loud, bright, fun designs. Our brand persona is all about being disruptive and fun with high-quality products that make a lot of noise…

For example?
When we started eleven years ago, we began raising money and awareness of testicular cancer through the sale of our comfy, bright boxers. They help address the stigma of a disease that many people don’t want to talk about… We made it glaringly obvious. Well, that model worked and we’ve since developed a whole charitable range and donated over a million pounds to various charities…

Currently, on the website are RNLI, Movember, My Name’s Doddie and Dogs Trust, but we’ve done others! We create product with the same influences and high quality as our other designs… Then sell them on the website and make a per-purchase donation to those charities. So very much like a licensing model. We always organise a minimum donation, and then the charities also give a percentage based on their own sales.

That’s amazing. The company didn’t start out with licensing in mind, did it?
No, not really. it was more about our subscription model and comfy oddball stock designs. We started getting new kits for the new England and Wales Football and Rugby Teams, mimicking them in boxer shorts and bringing them out for Christmas. Once they sold through, we’d wait for next year’s kits. Two years ago, the Managing Director and I had a conversation about doing more in entertainment, character and brands. And it’s been a massive success since then.

Well, let’s talk about that… What are some of the licenses you hold?
We’ve got everything from The Beano and Sesame Street to Kellogg’s, Pringles and Mr. Men and Little Miss… We’ve got AC/DC, Rolling Stones, Emoji… All sorts! We’ve got a fantastic deal with Paramount that spans eight brands – seven of which have already been on sale. There’s Star Trek, Garfield, South Park, Ninja Turtles, Grease, SpongeBob and Top Gun.

That’s quite a range! You won an award from Paramount, did you not?
Yes! Wow… We recently won Paramount’s Newcomer of the Year. That’s massive for us; it was a real honour to be invited to the summit down there and win… Because we’re not a licensing brand – we’re a brand that does licensing – and a relatively small company when it comes to the amount we’re doing. Critically, though, we have a big mission – and it’s great to see all our departments really understanding what we want out of these licenses, and even have Paramount recognise us.

I was also interested to see a very positive news story about Oddballs featuring real bodies in their adverts…
Yes, we had a phrase to the effect, ‘Every body is beautiful’. We were thrilled that that got attention because it was a very healthy, helpful thing. The brutal truth of how it came about, though, is that when we were a much smaller company, the marketing team were the models.

Ha!
Ha! In fact, when I did my interview, I had to do a marketing campaign to launch a new design called Underground. As you might imagine, Underground was based around a very a vague metro tube map with various different colours. I thought it would be a good idea to film myself getting on the tube in a pair of black boxers, then go along the train, get off in the underground and so on! So I pitched that, and they loved it. Once I got the job, they said, “Right. Off you go!”

No?! You had to do it?!
Yes! I had to travel a couple of metro stops in my boxers! I got ready in the car park in the rain with an umbrella and a matching pair of pants. And my wife was like, “Sorry… What is it you work as now? What do you do?”

Ha! I’m not surprised! Ha!
But being unapologetically authentic is an important part of our brand. We don’t ham things up for various campaigns; we don’t try and make things gimmicky – although fun underwear can become quite a gimmicky; they’re quite a novelty purchase for people.

And on that, Matthew, I have a delicate question… I think it would be easy for somebody to sneer, thinking: ‘Oh, right – they do novelty pants!” Right? With another company, the product could deteriorate into tat pretty quickly…
Ha! You’re totally right!

Ha! You took that well! So what separates you? What lifts you up?
The root of what we do has always been great design and really high quality – and those factors will never change… Whether it’s a pair of plain black boxers for classic, a multipack of five or a brand-new Ninja Turtle line, we give it the same attention. Now, we do our biggest sales in Q4, of course, because we sit in the gifting category. But our customers aren’t looking for a one-and-done novelty purchase.

It sounds like you’ve got a pretty good handle on this in a very short time…
It’s been such a fantastic journey into licensing over the last two years. You know, three years ago we did £300,000 in license sales. Two years ago, we did 1.7 million and last year, we did over 3 million. A lot of that is down to volume because we’ve gone from eight licensed designs to over 40. We also put about 30 to 35% of our sales back into marketing; we invest heavily in our designs and really push things on our own channels.

Well, you’re obviously doing something very right! Now, we’ve talked about nostalgia, quality and your demographics. What other qualities unite all your partners, though? What makes them right for you?
Good question! I think reputation is the word that sums it up… Kellogg’s, for example, has a great reputation… Mr. Men, Sesame Street; you name it – they all have a great reputation in that gifting area. If a brand has a great reputation, and we can align with how they do things, then the conversation becomes very easy… Conversely, we’ve had conversations with brands ranging from heavy metal to fast-moving consumer goods that just wouldn’t work for us because they don’t yet have that reputation.

I know you have some news for us! What are some of your recent signings?
The Who has just launched recently with Bravado, and we’ve welcomed Elvis to the portfolio with the team at Authentic. We’re also bringing in new designs across Sesame Street, Paramount and AC/DC… And we have some great things coming in early 2026, too!

Amazing! We need to start wrapping things up, Matthew, but I can’t let you go without finding out if you personally have a dream license?
Personally, I would love to do something with Warner Bros.! Purely because I think they’re emphatic… We did Superman as a brand partnership recently, which only made me want to work with them from a licensed point of view even more. The scope of the brands they have is a really strong fit for us: Looney Tunes, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and DC… There’s a lot of really high quality in that for our consumers.

That’s a great answer! Is there anything else I could’ve asked about today?
No, I don’t think so! This has been great; I appreciate you reaching out. It’s an exciting time at Oddballs for all things licensed and we’ve got some really fun stuff coming up. Then I think it’s a case of being able to upscale what we’re doing to move into retail and expand the net a little – and move further into Europe with the licensed product as a vessel.

Fantastic. Thanks, Matthew.