Love a duck! Rubber Road’s Liam Taylor on the brands and fans that help Tubbz ducks soar

Liam Taylor, I’m thrilled to chat! You’ve spoken to Billy Langsworthy before; people can read that piece here. That was well over a year ago…
It was! Things have moved very quickly!

Indeed! Back then, you’d just gone into the US. But last year you sold 2.63 million units… With the hope that you’d hit 5 million this year.
And we’re on track for that, so we’re really pleased with the growth. I’ve been with the business ten years now and it’s come a long, long way. I mean… We started out predominantly on gaming licenses, but we were also one of the first companies to do ‘ugly’ Christmas jumpers. When other people started to copy that trend, our sales started to decline – and we realised we needed to find our next thing. When we did some research, we found that rubber ducks were incredibly popular!

From Christmas jumpers to novelty ducks! And out of interest, Liam, why do you think rubber ducks were so popular?
The rubber duck itself one of the oldest toys there is! And you know, there were a number of counterfeit, unlicensed rubber ducks on the market. We wanted to do ours more on the high-end collectible side – and we felt that the market was out there because there were duck shops all over the world…

Were there?! They must’ve passed me by!
Oh, for sure! When you go to Amsterdam or Prague, say. We’ve also got them in England… So I suppose – since everyone recognises a rubber duck – we thought we could change what was already out there and take it up a few notches with official licenses and better designs. So that’s why we got into the market, little knowing that it’d be incredibly popular with so many audiences around the world.

And what makes an IP right for you, Liam? I know you’re very selective…
I would say it’s a combination of fan interest and fan passion. So, for example, we made an announcement last night at San Diego Comic Con that we signed a license with Hazbin Hotel. Hazbin Hotel is an adult animation that started on YouTube but is now a huge hit on Amazon Prime. It’s a great example of the fan interest and passion we look for…

Now, we’ve looked at many things before which have similar stats… But we have to look below the surface to see if the fan passion is there – with fan art, for example, or excitement about other people’s product launches. Similarly, there are certain licenses that we don’t think will work because they’re maybe a little too highbrow… Our gut instinct is that they’re just not going to work.

Would it be impertinent to ask for an example of that?
The example that comes to mind – because it’s a great brand, but I don’t see how we can make it work – is Downton Abbey. I don’t see it working, but even if I did, we’d still have to do our research. In contrast, we signed the rock band Ghost recently… We could’ve gone after more high-profile bands, but Ghost are up and coming and have an active fan base. And the fact that the lead singer chooses a different outfit for every tour and album really leans into what we do. Those are incredibly passionate fan bases.

Another thing I’d say about finding the right brands is that we’ve started taking stands at Comic Cons more regularly. We retail there, but now I attend and help out because I like to see what’s trending for fans. They really help us keep our fingers on the pulse. So Hazbin Hotel, for example, had some voice talent in London alongside David Tennant – and the queues were insane. That’s really helpful research; it gives us some real insight into what fans are connecting with.

That’s smart! For people that haven’t yet seen your product, I think it’s worth saying that your ducks are enormously good quality…
Oh, absolutely correct. It takes one of our 3-D designers around three months to design a new duck. We go into real detail around the specific character. We are creating, and capture their facial expression and unique characteristics. The feedback we get from the community is phenomenal.

Got it. So we were talking about Hazbin Hotel being a new signing… What else is new?
Looking over the early part of the year, we moved into anime. That’s been a huge success – but it took a long time to get there because it’s a pretty complex market. Certain people own the image rights, others own the story rights, yet more own the broadcast rights. We had the manga series My Hero Academia a couple of years ago. It went pretty well but when we put it on Twitter as it was then, it just went crazy. But trying to get the rights to something else was quite a tough job…

And Chainsaw Man?
Ah! Yes, we later did Chainsaw Man, which is an 18-rated manga. It’s pretty violent. But again, that went incredibly well for us – so much so that the guy that owns the IP thinks it’s one of the best pieces of merch he’s ever seen on his brand. It does get easier, of course… Once you’ve set the precedent with one product in a genre, others are more likely to follow suit… So we’ve got more lined up on that – including some more Chainsaw Man.

Brilliant. There’s also a trend I wanted to discuss with you; one that only came to my attention very recently… By which I mean when you emailed me this morning!
Ha!

Ha! Well, I’m assuming its bigger in the US: Duck Duck Jeep… What the deuce is that?! And has it helped your sales?
Ha! It’s definitely helped our sales – that’s one of the reasons why the numbers are so impressive. The trend – and you’re right, it’s mainly in the US – is this… If you drive a Jeep and you go to a large outdoor area, be it Walmart, Target, or somewhere else where other Jeep drivers are likely to be, you’re meant to leave a duck on the windscreen, or on the wing mirror…

You leave a duck somewhere on the body of a stranger’s Jeep?
Exactly. That’s so popular over there that we’ve even seen people leaving little platforms on their wing mirrors to say, ‘Please leave your duck here.’ So that’s definitely helped us… Which is amazing when you think about it! It’s quite a commitment for somebody to leave a $20-25 duck on someone’s bonnet. In fact, one of our biggest accounts actually had to limit the amount that people were taking out of a store because customers were picking up a countertop unit and going, “That’s my Duck Duck Jeep sorted for the next couple of months…”

Ha! I love that there’s such a specific audience! Presumably, cult-movie audiences also connect with your products?
Oh, absolutely. We’ve done Reservoir Dogs for example. We’ve done The Breakfast Club. We’ve done a whole range of Kubrick films… 2001, The Shining, Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket. So we have that kind of coolness sat alongside more mainstream brands like Jurassic World and Wicked. Mind you, Wicked was a real step change for us in its own way…

How so?
That was the first time we launched products for a brand-new movie. Generally speaking, we like to lean into the classic side of things. But Wicked changed that – and it did really well for us. So much so, we’ve got a much wider Wicked range coming later this year, including some of the classic characters.

Something Wicked this way comes! Another genre you have in abundance on your site is horror. Same thing there, presumably? Cult characters, passionate fans?
We’ve had great success with horror, yes… So much so that we’re now looking at it all year round. We’ve got a horror week coming up in August; we have a couple of reveals going on. We’ve particularly found that horror works all year round with US retailers, but when you get into August, they do just flip over to Halloween! We have a customer called Spirit of Halloween, for example. They pick up empty retail sites and make them incredibly successful because it’s such a huge event over there.

And what are some of the horror characters you have?
So far, we’ve done Michael Myers. Pennywise, Frankenstein’s Monster, Beetlejuice, Dracula, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Chucky, Five Nights at Freddy’s… We have a few more in the pipeline that we’re not quite ready to announce, but we can send you a news release later.

Please do! You’ve got some absolute belters in there. We need to start wrapping this up, sadly, but you’ve made me wonder: is there a dream license you’ve not managed to win yet?
On a personal level, I’d love to do Pokémon. It’s a huge brand that would work really well with our products, and I’m a massive fan of how they continually engage with their fans – young and old.

Perfect! Thanks for making time to chat, Liam. Do send me news releases when the time’s right – I want to keep up to speed!