Case Study · Consumer Products · 2017–2019
Zero to $1M.
Building LAIKA's Licensing Engine from Scratch.
In 2017, LAIKA had zero consumer products revenue. Three years later it had a full licensing engine, 25+ global partners and 150+ products on the market, built on one rule: every product had to feel as handmade as the films.
2.8x
Comic-Con YoY sales uplift
3 yrs
Zero to full programme
150+
Products to market
25+
Global licensees signed
$1M
DTC revenue built from zero
The Starting Point
LAIKA was rightly protective of its IP, and its first instinct was to resist merchandise entirely. The concern was curatorial: nobody wanted products that cheapened the work. That constraint became the strategy. Working with CMO Brad Wald and Striker Entertainment, the licensing programme was built on a single principle: every product had to be a genuine extension of the film.
01
The Live Event Laborator
I wasn't going to build licensing infrastructure before knowing what fans wanted. San Diego Comic-Con and the Portland Art Museum became our R&D lab, with real audiences, real purchasing behaviour and real data on what worked.
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The first products, limited-edition NECA figures and Funko Pops, proved the point quickly. Fans valued creative integrity over mass-market volume, and they bought objects that felt as considered as the films.
Image — Comic-Con
Learning first hand what consumers react to ©LAIKA LLC
Category discipline. Partners were given categories based on what they had shown they could deliver. Licensing a category to a partner who couldn't execute at the required quality level would damage the programme more than leaving the category empty.
Creative integrity over volume. Every product required studio approval against a style guide that reflected the film's aesthetic DNA. No exceptions.
Category discipline. Partners were assigned categories based on demonstrated capability, not just appetite. Licensing a category to a partner who couldn't execute at the required quality level would damage the programme more than leaving the category empty.
Event-anchored launches. New products were introduced at events where fan response could be measured in real time, before committing to full production runs.
2.8x
YoY increase in consumer product sales.
02
The Licensing Architecture
Once the proof of concept was established, the licensing engine was built around three principles:
"We were giving a community a way to own a piece of the world they already loved."
The academic evidence backs this up. Research in the Spanish Journal of Marketing found that brand trust built through community engagement positively affects repurchase intention and word-of-mouth, both directly and through the community itself. The LAIKA programme worked commercially because the community came first.
References
Anaya-Sánchez, R., Aguilar-Illescas, R., Molinillo, S. & Martínez-López, F.J. (2020) — "Trust and loyalty in online brand communities." Spanish Journal of Marketing – ESIC, 24(2), 177–191. Brand trust built through genuine community engagement positively affects repurchase intention and word-of-mouth, both directly and through community trust itself. DOI: 10.1108/SJME-01-2020-0004
Mills, M., Oghazi, P., Hultman, M. & Theotokis, A. (2022) — "The impact of brand communities on public and private brand loyalty: A field study in professional sports." Journal of Business Research, 144, 1077–1086. DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.02.056
Consumer insight methodology: layering event data, partner data, and museum retail data to make product decisions
Cross-functional management across production artists, museum curators, external licensing partners and the CMO
Licensing strategy that protects IP integrity while scaling commercially
Using live events as structured R&D rather than one-off activations
Building a revenue-generating division from zero inside a production studio with no prior commercial products infrastructure