The Power of Social Brand Experience & Collectibles: Superplastic Launches Dopeameme Institute

Speaker 1 Personally, I would love it if Toys was our smallest revenue channel because it would mean we've succeeded as a brand to be able to, you know, make the core collector happy with the best stuff, but also make a business out of the other revenue that we have in our platform.

Speaker 2 This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network Production.

Speaker 2 We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month.

Speaker 2 Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now.
Right about now.

Speaker 3 What's up, guys? Welcome. It's right about now.
We're always getting right. We're always fucking now.

Speaker 3 So, what's happening? We got Jennifer Van Dyke, Zach Sugarman. We're from Super Plastic.
It's a badass media company, and we're going to talk about storytelling, the future of retail, and just,

Speaker 3 hey, you're in for a surprise today. what's up guys

Speaker 3 hey right welcome hey

Speaker 3 what's cooking so much

Speaker 1 so much is cooking we are cooking with crisco right now just launched a new location in vegas yeah it's cooking yeah man you guys got your hands in a lot and anybody named super plastic gets my attention

Speaker 3 no doubt

Speaker 3 I gotta start there.

Speaker 3 Where'd the name come from?

Speaker 1 I wish we had a better story for it.

Speaker 1 It was really quite a random combination that our founder, Paul Budnets, created. He was the founder of Kid Robot.

Speaker 1 And when he was ready to start a new company, more character and IP driven, he wanted it to be super and somehow he landed on super plastic.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And I guess

Speaker 3 the obscurity sometimes with which names come from, you just never know. It's just, it just lands certain places.
You guys get the name.

Speaker 3 What was it called? The something of Disney?

Speaker 1 Demented Disney.

Speaker 3 Demented Disney. There we go.
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 I love that because we talked a little pre-episode and we're going to talk about some names, different things like that.

Speaker 3 My head gets exactly where the space is sometimes where, you know, words are powerful. Demented Disney.
Yes. What makes it demented Disney ultimately?

Speaker 1 The reality is that we were born of TikTok and we were born of the internet. Our two main characters, Janky and Googie Mon, are the ultimate schemers.
Janky's sort of the lovable idiot.

Speaker 1 Googie Mon is the

Speaker 1 semi-lovable and always interesting murderer.

Speaker 1 And it's a combination for the ages that really just locked into the core of what Gen Z on TikTok

Speaker 1 wanted.

Speaker 1 to see and wanted to be. And we have taken their storylines and their dynamics and grown their character galaxy in a way that has fuckery at the core.
That's just who we are.

Speaker 3 You used the analogy earlier,

Speaker 3 the modern day Tom and Jerry. And if you go watch, if you remember, I remember like watching Tom and Jerry.
I mean, constant fucking with one another.

Speaker 3 That's all it was.

Speaker 3 Constant.

Speaker 1 And it's funny. And that's exactly what this is, you know, and no matter what the adventure is.
And then they became playable skins in Fortnite.

Speaker 1 And the audience really just took to it because they could actually now help create the fuckery.

Speaker 3 Yes, I love it. The,

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 3 animation,

Speaker 3 when I think back to the days of animation and the days now, how's it changed?

Speaker 3 I mean, I know that I'm leading the witness a little bit, but I just, I'm curious, you know, as like a kid growing up and then all the stages, though, I know it's changed, but I think for our audience, it'd be interesting to kind of hear just some of the evolution.

Speaker 1 For sure. I mean, you know,

Speaker 1 back in the original days, the stuff we probably watched as kids, a lot of it was hand-painted, hand-drawn, et cetera.

Speaker 1 So fast forward through into kind of where we sit today, we actually sit at a really interesting moment

Speaker 1 where animation is undergoing an incredible evolution.

Speaker 1 The sort of last couple decades have been dominated by very high-end professional tools, Maya and those types of things, and they create beautiful professional level, you know,

Speaker 1 or theatrical level animation that takes a lot of time and a lot of money.

Speaker 1 And then the emergence of the dominance of video game worlds and especially massive multiplayer worlds has started to push a new kind of animation from a different direction.

Speaker 1 And that's really based in platforms like Unreal Engine or Unity, things where you can actually world build, not just sort of character sketch, right?

Speaker 1 And these things are colliding in a really interesting way.

Speaker 1 Frankly, we're sitting right at the middle of it because we produce a lot of content in Maya and equally have a whole pipeline built on Unreal Engine where we can use our characters and those things.

Speaker 1 It gives us a different level of flexibility because the reality is you're publishing content now across so many different types of platforms that sometimes you need a little bit of both, the high-end and the, you know, the sort of medium.

Speaker 1 But then we're sitting on this precipice of where it's going to go in AI.

Speaker 1 That is, I think, really, really exciting as well.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I definitely want to get down that AI road.

Speaker 4 One thing to add on real quick, Ryan, on that like, With the tech too, like, and to where Jenfur was going, like, once you make a rig, a 3D rig of an animated character, you can then apply it to all these different places.

Speaker 4 So when we're thinking about our IP, while yes, it is predominantly TikTok, YouTube, content, Instagram, we are making things, you know, in Unreal for a Fortnite game.

Speaker 4 We can apply that in other areas as well. So when people want to consume in different ways now with new animation technology.

Speaker 4 you've got that core rig set up that then allows you and especially with ai to then capitalize on creating a lot more outputs more frequently and easier and nimbler without having to like hand draw everything net new.

Speaker 4 So you really can kind of amortize an idea or spread out an idea or a piece of content across all these channels kind of once you get that core rig set up.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 It's interesting because I think about, you know, I was going down the road of like the importing of the writing with animation and how smart the dialogue has gotten and, you know, the more in the talking animation shows.

Speaker 3 And then I was just thinking like Tom and Jerry, they didn't say a damn thing.

Speaker 3 It's storytelling, right?

Speaker 4 What's their voice sound like?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I'm like, because I'm like, damn, it's the writing today is so clever on the best animations, including yours, and like, and the story arc.

Speaker 3 And I mean, when I talk about writing, I think of it, you know, being a creative guy, like I think through the, you know, what you're seeing and the script combined with the dialogue and all those things.

Speaker 3 I mean, maybe talk about that from you guys' perspective for how you bring stories to life.

Speaker 1 It's so true, though, the

Speaker 1 layeredness of it all. I mean, our characters actually

Speaker 1 garnered 22 million social followers, never saying a word. And so they were Tom and Jerry in that way, right? Yep.

Speaker 1 And it was really in the development of our TV show with Amazon and in the development of our experiential

Speaker 1 that we've started to figure out, well, what do these guys sound like? And by the way, what would they say? And how does that add three more layers to it?

Speaker 1 And, you know, there is something very precious, too, about the voice of a character that I think we have the flexibility to play with. So, for example, you know, if you think Ren and Stimpy's voices,

Speaker 1 If you hear something that doesn't sound just like them, you feel, oh, that's authentic to come out. For us,

Speaker 1 we have a little bit of the flexibility to play with what these characters may sound like. You know, again, the sort of are we messing with you or are we being serious?

Speaker 1 So, we've been experimenting with a lot of different types of voice models and different things.

Speaker 1 And again, the ability to create these things cheaply and scalably, AI is a natural solution for us in a lot of that.

Speaker 1 But it just opens up six more levels when you start adding voice. But you got to be funny, then you got to be like funny.

Speaker 3 Different, different, different threshold, isn't it? And it's so interesting because I think about a comment you just said, Jennifer, like with

Speaker 3 the way it feels like stuff has scripted the best stuff today, like with the way it draws the audience in, is it's kind of like that wink and the nod, right? Like, you're in on this.

Speaker 3 You know, we all know that we're erusing you a little bit, but you're in on it, or, you know, or you're not, right? It's kind of that interplay of uh letting you in but are you really in

Speaker 1 isn't it something like that we believe in that deeply in every platform right i mean we just published a tick tock post on for thanksgiving that

Speaker 1 was one of our better performing posts of the whole year and like if you know who our characters are It's edgy, funny, but you get it.

Speaker 1 If you have no idea who our characters are, you might be like, what did I just watch?

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 1 So it is like, if you know, you know.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. Zach, being on the strategy end

Speaker 3 with the company, you know, what's, what's, uh, what's your role?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 So really my role kind of, you know, on the strategy side of things is looking at all of the ways, you know, our fans and consumers kind of interact with the brand and then strategically thinking like, how can we serve them better?

Speaker 4 um how can we do more of what's working how can we bring in other partners that are missing to add a new element how can we tweak things you know based on what we're seeing with our own fans but also what's in the marketplace and that kind of spans across the demented disney analogy so that's everything from our content and the channels to like product itself so we're known for our vinyl art toy figures behind me you know what are other ones that are going to resonate are there different ways of selling them you know live selling on the floor like a sports sports cart collectible?

Speaker 4 Are there different partners from an individual artist or brand that are really going to excite our fans that we want to bring to the table?

Speaker 4 Are there different things that we haven't done before, such as like creating our own Fortnite map game, which we did back in the summer based on the popularity of our character skins as some new way we can engage our fans with our IP?

Speaker 4 And then from in real life, like with our experiential at Dopamine in Vegas. You know, again, what is going to keep fans happy?

Speaker 4 What's going to keep them coming back, talking about it with their friends?

Speaker 4 How can we take advantage of a physical space strategically, not just for people to interact, have fun with the experience by product, but it's a third space venue in Vegas where there are major events going on all the time.

Speaker 4 So like for example, like when F1 was there last weekend, you know, we did a deal with a brand partner that's a big sponsor of one of the F1 racing teams to just host, you know, 100 of their kind of VIPs at Area 15 in dopamine and have shut down the space, have them go through it themselves, get them a little swag bag and kind of entertain them there and give them that full wipe up treatment.

Speaker 4 So it is across all of those.

Speaker 4 It's staying on the leading edge of kind of those trends. So I'm also the chief collector and the core nerd here who grew up collecting kid robot toys, sports cards, comics, everything since the 90s.

Speaker 4 So I'll participate a lot directly in our fans and Discord. We got a live unboxing video with one of our influencers later in the week that I'll be doing too.

Speaker 4 So I'm trying to just be the voice of the customer or listen to them, but also look at all the data and the T Leaves and kind of see like what makes sense.

Speaker 4 And the beauty about our company and with Jennifer and with Paul and kind of how we've set it up is, you know, I mean, we literally talk about ourselves as a Devinta Disney.

Speaker 4 We say our style is fuckery. So we want to have fun.
It's okay if it's not for everyone.

Speaker 4 We want to do strategically what makes the most, you know, sense for us as a company and for those who get it and those being kind of our fans and those consumers.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, you got to cater to your fans.
Like, you can't be all things to all people. You know, that's when you really

Speaker 4 know.

Speaker 3 And it gets, it gets tricky. I'm sure Jennifer is CEO.

Speaker 3 Like, you're looking at numbers, like, there's probably temptations to get outside the box sometimes, you know, but it's like keeping that narrow path, right?

Speaker 1 It is. There's temptations all around that could really mess the business model, right?

Speaker 1 And at the same time, investors and everybody else demand growth and we want the IP IP to touch as many people as possible. So balancing those things is a really interesting opportunity.

Speaker 1 But like any audience today, no matter how big it is, it's really composed of segments of smaller audiences. And ours is a perfect

Speaker 1 plate in that sense, in that our big audience is actually composed of subgroups of people that are really into gaming, into art, into fashion and music, different parts of pop culture.

Speaker 1 not every part of pop culture, you know, but certain segments, adult comedy and anime fans even, you know, and that also, when you look at it as a grouping of smaller, you know, segmented audiences that have this beautiful Venn diagram of overlap, then you start to add in geography, gender, age.

Speaker 1 At the core of it is a Gen Z or young millennial consumer that if you watch our content is equally split, gender, male, female.

Speaker 1 If you buy our toys, you're probably more likely male, slightly, you know, slightly on the older side of Gen Z.

Speaker 1 But really, what we try to do and what Zach does so brilliantly is help identify who we're speaking to with what angle, because our company can also at the same time be so many things.

Speaker 3 Smart.

Speaker 3 First word to me of mine.

Speaker 3 I get it.

Speaker 3 I'm eating it. I'm eating it for lunch, dinner, everything.
As a marketer and as a brand guy.

Speaker 3 It's really smart. Talk to me about bringing personifying animated characters in a way.
You know, like you've got social media, you've got all these things.

Speaker 3 I hope that makes sense, but like you have to sort of make them real. I mean, they are real in their own way, but is that a challenge? Is it fun? Is it all the above? Yes.
Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 You know, what's so interesting is if you, if you think about what's happening in the the world today, you know, there are avatars that all of us play in games or on social media or things like that.

Speaker 1 There's characters that we all love

Speaker 1 from different parts of our lives. We've talked about a few today.
This idea of a character is really strong in our culture and in our world today.

Speaker 1 In so many ways, a lot of them are thin as a cracker in that, you know, like, sure, there's a ton of characters, but what do you really feel? What are you really a fan of?

Speaker 1 And what makes that difference?

Speaker 1 And that's something we spend a lot of time thinking about, which is like, okay, Janky and Google and their galaxy of characters, Daisy and the little helpers and everything else, people know them.

Speaker 1 We've achieved that mission, but now the mission is to get people to really know and love them. And that tracks in a couple ways for us.
Like kind of any good plot, right?

Speaker 1 You're either ever always developing character or advancing narrative. We've developed character with this group and now we're going to advance narrative.

Speaker 1 And that's why things like Dopamine Institute for Pleasure Research are so fun because you're physically part of a scheme. You're part of an adventure to develop narrative with our characters.

Speaker 1 Meanwhile, we're back in the factory developing new characters too,

Speaker 1 you know, that will eventually be ready with audiences to go out for more adventures. But we kind of think of it that way.

Speaker 1 How do you really become a fan of something? I mean, Zach and I both spent so much time in the sports business. We love fandom and we just apply it here.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 you're doing a good job with it. Like just reading,

Speaker 3 what struck me in, I mean, this was my natural space, like, but researching you guys for this and looking at it, what struck me is the loyalty of the audience.

Speaker 3 You know, like the core audience and how loyal they are and how vested, you know, people are in this world and in these characters, and in the art, and all that stuff.

Speaker 3 Because the collectible, the interplay of the animation with the physical art, with collectibles, and all that, there's a ton of like synergy with those two things and that mindset.

Speaker 3 It's really brilliant. I

Speaker 3 talk to me about like what those art releases are like and what that world, you know, entails.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 4 So, art releases, so, you know, they can vary, of course, with everything that we got going on. But in general, right, like we want to create this hype moment.

Speaker 4 We want to create a sense of urgency where people are excited and know what's coming. And then, ideally, we're selling out pretty quickly after the drop, right?

Speaker 4 So, it starts with kind of teasing what's coming up. You know, can we play off of some previous references, you know, that the artist is known for? Maybe we've we've already collaborated with them.

Speaker 4 We do have our own kind of super fam, kind of our own loyalty group. And so we do give them early access to what that drop is going to be.

Speaker 4 You know, it's part of them being so ingrained kind of with our brand and being loyal to it. And then how can we show off the story and the lore like behind the drop itself? Like what went into it?

Speaker 4 And how can we create a larger conversation around it with maybe kind of, you know, partners or fans of that artist itself and and they do range so like we had an amazing drop over the summer with an artist who's not known as like a big-time art artist but he's huge in the tattoo space for professional athletes by a name of gangas based out of los angeles and he literally does all the tattoos for lebron james anthony davis carlos alcarez the entire brazilian soccer national team and so We did this awesome toy drop and there's three versions based off of one of his iconic characters.

Speaker 4 And we had a super, super limited run, then we had a mid-tier and then we had a larger one. We kind of staged the drops to create excitement, right?

Speaker 4 People that missed out on the first super limited one had a chance for the other ones.

Speaker 4 But what we did with Gang and what he did a great job of was we seeded these to LeBron, to Anthony Davis, to Carlos Alcarez, to Vinny Jr. and Rodrigo.
And we have all these amazing photos of the toy.

Speaker 4 So we use that to help amplify. And so that would be one of bringing us into new audiences.

Speaker 4 We have another one coming up, you know, with an Atlanta-based mural artist called Greg Mike. It's actually dropping later this week, where, you know, he's very much into the core art scene.

Speaker 4 He has an amazing space in Atlanta. He's doing stuff at Art Basel this week in Miami.
And so with those, it is deeper into that art space. Can we do a very cool curated wall mural?

Speaker 4 Can we have, you know, potentially a live art experience with the drop at Art Basel? Because we know that community is already going to be there and doing things.

Speaker 4 So we do try and like customize these artist product drops to kind of align with what we feel the fans are going to be into and what the artist is known for.

Speaker 4 And so when someone like a Greg Mike's going to be at Art Basel, that makes sense.

Speaker 4 When someone like Genga is going to be in LA and you have the Brazilian soccer team in for a soccer game or LeBron James, let's see them product and capture a lot of content around it.

Speaker 4 And then there's stuff in between.

Speaker 4 But we do want to bring our artists very close to our fans and then really have it be more of a partnership where they're involved with the drop and pushing it versus just licensing something and selling it.

Speaker 4 And then we're manufacturing. That is not what we do at Super Classic at all.
It really is that kind of blend of the IP.

Speaker 4 And so that comes with how we bring it to market and how we sell it and really talk to and engage with our fans.

Speaker 3 So

Speaker 3 shameless plug for the YouTube channel because our YouTube channel is blowing up. So we got to, you got to be watching this to get the full experience.
If you're listening right now, we love you.

Speaker 3 We know we love you. We love you for making us number one.
But look, you have to watch this on YouTube because Jennifer was just holding up one of these characters.

Speaker 3 Jennifer, I want you to hold them up again and tell me who that is.

Speaker 3 Who is, okay, who is this exactly?

Speaker 1 This is one of the three that we did with Ganga, the artist that Zach just mentioned.

Speaker 1 And what's interesting is this is actually a perfect illustration of a combination between a series of toy that we do called a choppy. That's like the sort of eye and mask thing.

Speaker 1 But also with an astronaut, which was the integration with Ganga's character that he has drawn, which is more of a sort of astronaut type character. So it was a perfect combination.

Speaker 1 And as Zach said, we did three different versions of it.

Speaker 1 One that we did in extremely limited quantities that sold out immediately. The other two in slightly less limited quantities, but still small.
Those also sold out pretty fast.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that was going to be where I was getting. Like, how rare are we talking about now?

Speaker 3 How's the valuation on these pieces

Speaker 3 going?

Speaker 1 So, you know, and that's a, that is the ultimate, I think,

Speaker 1 spreadsheet project is, you know, how rare is rare enough? And to be honest, it is some, you know,

Speaker 1 magical equation between the size of your audience and

Speaker 1 the quantities that you should make.

Speaker 1 We have, in our history, done a lot of different experiments with scarcity.

Speaker 1 Zach and I have in the past year really started to change the approach though to go more and more rare for these types of toys because they are so valuable

Speaker 1 when they're in the smaller quantities, both for us and our business, but as well as for buyers and the secondary market, which is a really interesting and

Speaker 1 thriving opportunity for everybody.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And it's a really interesting point, Jennifer, because I think think about it like as the CEO,

Speaker 3 is this a brand play or a revenue play, right? Because it's like, hey, I could sell, am I going to sell a million of these or am I going to do a hundred of them or a thousand?

Speaker 3 And that's because the hundred or a thousand is probably brand because it's probably not a ton of revenue, but it elevates the brand value and the character value. That's an interest.

Speaker 3 That's an interesting interplay, I'm sure, in the decision process.

Speaker 1 It's a fantastic question because it is the core of why we call ourselves an IP or a media company, because

Speaker 1 that is our asset, that is our value, and that is our goal is to be larger than kind of any one tool to bring that to fans. And toys and our high-end collectibles are unequivocally a fantastic brand.

Speaker 1 opportunity to connect deeply with a community.

Speaker 1 We would argue the same is true for our experiential space in Vegas, for our game on Fortnite, for our social media content

Speaker 1 and our laundry format stuff. All of those things become

Speaker 1 very important tools for how we grow and expand the IP that we build and

Speaker 1 want fans to love.

Speaker 1 It is unequivocally brand.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 I'm sure.

Speaker 3 And that's, but I want our audience, you know, we have a very affluent marketing and business and executives to the startup, got the crowd, but they need to understand this interplay because we've gotten conditioned in this world of very cheap performance marketing stuff, sell, sell, sell, sell.

Speaker 3 And that's great. We all got to make the cash register ring at a certain point, Jennifer.
I know you're probably held to, you know, some level of your evaluation, I'm sure, is monetarily driven.

Speaker 3 However, you can't.

Speaker 3 The high tide raises all ships. And when you elevate the brand, you are are elevating the IP to a level of evaluation that it would not have without that investment.

Speaker 3 And that investment pays over time.

Speaker 1 Unequivocally. And

Speaker 1 there's really kind of two components that

Speaker 1 we balance in our business.

Speaker 1 The first is really this, how do collectors work? right?

Speaker 1 What is the way that a core collector base grows a brand? And I learned this when I was in the NFT space at Dapper Labs.

Speaker 1 The biggest collectors, your most avid collectors, are actually the ones that attract the most

Speaker 1 attention and others to your brand. So it doesn't work where it's like a concentric circle outward.
It works where the whales or your biggest collectors

Speaker 1 bring in kind of the fringe. So it's almost like from the furthest out is attracted in.
by your core collector group.

Speaker 1 And so it is incredibly important for us, and Zach articulated this too, to keep keep that core collector satisfied and happy and intrigued. That's one dynamic in our brand.

Speaker 1 And that also has, you know, the scarcity and the revenue limitation to it. At the same time, our mass reach and our collection of

Speaker 1 targeted segments that make a mass on social media platforms and other larger format vehicles is equally important to us because that also brings new people into the funnel and gives us, if you will, the currency to be able to spread that IP through other channels that will make us revenue, right?

Speaker 1 Like personally, I would love it if toys was our smallest revenue channel because it would mean we've succeeded as a brand to be able to, you know, make the core collector happy with the best stuff, but also make a business out of the other revenue that we have in our, you know, in our platform.

Speaker 3 Smart. Really fucking smart.

Speaker 3 Yeah, two smarts out of you, Ryan. I love it.
Yes.

Speaker 3 Because you're playing, this is the Ryan Alfred brand playbook. I grew up on the, I've been in this for 20 something years and watched, you know, some of the brand,

Speaker 3 the, the innovative brand approaches erode.

Speaker 3 And this is a game of chess when a lot of players are playing checkers. And I see that and I value it.
So I want to give you props for that. I appreciate that.

Speaker 3 Zach, talk to me, you know, as a collector and as someone that, you know, you're, you're, you're a, a consumer and working on the brand. Uh,

Speaker 3 do I, do me and my kids need to get in on this?

Speaker 4 Well, one, we'll happily send you some so the kids can have some fun. I mean, the answer is yes.
So I, uh, I have a near 13-year-old. And my wife definitely enables us and supported a big way.

Speaker 4 But yeah, I mean, he got back into collecting toys, also sports sports cards, comic cards.

Speaker 4 When there are local card shows in town, I'll buy a table for him and his friends to put up, you know, their collections and sell. And then it's a little business for him.

Speaker 4 So depending on your kids are, you could turn them into the value, what's the value of the secondary market?

Speaker 4 You know, how do you buy low, sell high, what to track, what not to, how to frame things up. I mean, isn't the number one thing kids want to do when they're later be an influencer?

Speaker 4 So at least put some business mind behind them. So there's not just an influencer.
It's like, hey, I'm going to be an influencer, but I have a $30,000 a year side business on eBay and I'm 14.

Speaker 4 Like, I'd rather see that on the resume. So that's how I've got my kid into it.

Speaker 3 We have four boys, 15, 13, 12, and 8.

Speaker 3 And what I do with the boys, I coach their sports teams, and then we have these little collectibles that we do together. So this might fit in there a little better.

Speaker 4 I feel like we're brothers from another mother on a different coast. Yeah, I am our coach of soccer and flag football and then do the same.
And we'll have all those things. They're great.

Speaker 4 Your older boys will love our content. Your eight-year-old should not watch it.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, he can grow into it over time.

Speaker 4 But it's fun being a core collector because

Speaker 4 the passion comes through the work of Luengage.

Speaker 4 Like it's very authentic and natural for me because I literally did grow up in San Diego bringing my box of comics down to the San Diego Comic-Con back when you could sell and buy comics.

Speaker 4 You know, this is in the late 80s, early 90s. And now it's the most amazing entertainment vehicle extravaganza ever, but like no one buys or sells comics there.
Yet it's called Comic-Con.

Speaker 4 It's really just a pop culture fest. But then to now, and so when we're engaging with these people, like I understand the nostalgia feel, I understand the, you know, how you want to display.

Speaker 4 Like I'm not in my family cave, which has all the toys and the cards. It's over in the garage, but like it's fun to have out.
We have things around the house. People love asking questions about it.

Speaker 4 And then you can explain. So I'm more of an extroverted collector.

Speaker 4 We have some that are introverted that may not want to talk about it, but behind that glass door, that's where they get validation because they have all their toys set up.

Speaker 4 But that's more of an introverted collector. And maybe they just want you to send them stuff, but they don't want it to be loud and broadcast.

Speaker 4 Whereas others, like, yeah, here are photos of my collection.

Speaker 4 We're running something right now called Deck the Halls over the holiday campaign where we're asking everyone to show off their super plastic collection.

Speaker 4 And we're having submissions come in online and then we're sharing them on social and then rewarding our favorites and other toys.

Speaker 4 And like, people have the most amazing setups ever with how they display our art figures in our house. And so so it's very cool.

Speaker 4 But then because of that, it's like, well, this doesn't just have to be collectibles. Like these kind of look just amazing in a lobby.

Speaker 4 Like, why don't hotels have this or law firms or consulting agencies? Like, these are great gifts. Instead of your boring corporate holiday gift, why don't we do some custom painted art figures?

Speaker 4 And even if they're not a collector, just give them something cool and different. So it's fun to play in the collector angle, but then, you know, understand that everyone doesn't have to collect it.

Speaker 4 At the end of the day, it just looks cool too. And that's okay.
If they just want to say it looks cool and have no other connection there, that's fine with us.

Speaker 3 Like, we'll play with that.

Speaker 3 I want to talk about Vegas and the future retail. But before we go,

Speaker 3 before we make that turn,

Speaker 3 talk to me about how your sports background has influenced

Speaker 3 what you've done here. You know, what's the influences for both of you, really?

Speaker 3 Like, I think it's pretty obvious for me, but I think for the audience, you know, what you've done in the past and how that's sort of influencing what you're doing at Super Plastics.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'll start in the end.

Speaker 3 Go ahead.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you can lay on top.

Speaker 4 So my background in sports was kind of always around monetizing communities,

Speaker 4 mostly more on the rights holder side. So I worked a lot with teams, leaks, rights holders, sponsorship strategy, merchandise sales, ticket sales, media rights.

Speaker 4 But at the core of it was really like, okay, what are these fans into?

Speaker 4 How do we give them more of that? How do we monetize them to channel an authentic way? So that applies to NBA. That applies to global soccer.
That could apply to a Premier League lacrosse team.

Speaker 4 That could apply to a esports team. So from big to niche, it was still always around monetizing communities and understanding that people consume differently.

Speaker 4 They want to be met on different channels. They want to be told different messages.
And how can we personalize that to them?

Speaker 4 So applying that mentality, just bringing it over into the collectible world, it really is about monetizing our community. We have our core base of fans.
They are really into the vinyl art toys.

Speaker 4 We can grow more fans by engaging them with our content, with experience. We can monetize across all those channels individually, but also collectively.

Speaker 4 And how do we do that while staying authentic to our brand, which we're not trying to be everyone, everything to everyone? And so we're making choices.

Speaker 4 So like for me, it's a very economic mindset of you know, what resources do we have? What's the best use of them for our end game? And would always do that in applying into the sports world teams.

Speaker 4 And so applying it in here. And then there's just the parallel of just fandom.
Like fandom is very similar. People love our characters and brand kind of like they would do a sports team.

Speaker 4 There are, you know, live things they can go to now with Vegas. There are products that they have and display and collect.
And then there's content that they're consuming.

Speaker 4 So I kind of look at it in that lens.

Speaker 4 But I know, Jim, you got some other ones too.

Speaker 3 I want to ask one thing there, Zach. So go for it.

Speaker 3 When you guys monetize, I I mean, thinking through the lens that you just said,

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 are you guys working with brands that then are paying to come to life within your worlds with these characters? Like, are y'all selling?

Speaker 4 That's one way. Yeah, we're not a white label, like, animation factory, but absolutely.
Like, we,

Speaker 4 I mean, we pursue all brand partnerships to hit across all three of our tent poles being kind of content IP being the first, product being the second, and real life experience being the third.

Speaker 4 So, yeah, so like, absolutely, there are things we deliver that are viewed as sponsorship that they're paying us.

Speaker 4 They're also things we're making together, whether that's product or new IP, where there's a path to revenue for both sides and everything in between.

Speaker 4 So we do look at partnerships in a truly partnership way. But yeah, absolutely.
We're bringing a lot of eyeballs, a lot of fans, consumers to the table. There's value in that.

Speaker 4 If we're putting additional animation resources and making a new IP and then taking it to market, there's a value in that. And that's very different than, hey, we made a toy together.

Speaker 4 Here's how many we sold. Here's your royalty.
But that also is included in what we do.

Speaker 3 So Janky might be drinking a Red Bull and product placement. Like, do we go that far? Or something?

Speaker 3 You know, we would want to have a little, a little

Speaker 3 hurting the brand. Right.

Speaker 4 We've done, here's an example. We did something with Mercedes.

Speaker 4 where,

Speaker 4 you know, they had an amazing new car release coming out and they wanted to collab around a new character, a new product.

Speaker 4 So we actually came together and created a new character called a Super Dackle, which is kind of like an animated dog. But then we made this awesome limited edition wood figure.

Speaker 4 We had some apparel that was part of a capsule collection. It was available when they released the car.
And then we did a big in-real life event in New York also as tied to it.

Speaker 4 We then made a lot of content with Super Dackle and kind of pushed that out there. And that was all integrated in one overall partnership.
So it's more around that than just like

Speaker 4 the, hey, here's a Red Bull, drink it. Um, we would like to have more fun.
We would want to get a bowl that maybe is red involved.

Speaker 4 You know, does it lead to F1 in Vegas where maybe they have to drink to kind of stay up awake for 48 hours and go to holiday events? Does it culminate with Red Bull VIPs at dopamine?

Speaker 3 Like, I'm riffing here off the spot, but that's how I would kind of think of that partnership. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 And I guess I'm always thinking through the lens of like Roblox, like, you know, within the janky virtual game.

Speaker 3 Yeah, googie mom's world

Speaker 3 these experiences coming to life the brand experiences in their world you know

Speaker 4 yeah so in our fortnite map game like we're doing that we have two um partnerships that um just closed where we're integrating virtual goods so like they there will be one is a beverage company where if you find it and get it it makes you um graffiti faster you have power-ups in the game there may be a billboard or a you know branded vending machine that's in there that you can just interact with and so yeah we're putting the brands literally in our worlds in those ways.

Speaker 4 Absolutely.

Speaker 3 Cool.

Speaker 1 Ryan, you asked if it hurts the brand. I think the question is whose brand?

Speaker 3 Because

Speaker 1 we're only going to do it in our fun style.

Speaker 1 And, you know, and if it works. I mean, the Mercedes example, if you look at the content, the content is actually a story of turning a standard sort of dashboard bobbing dog into a cool kid.

Speaker 1 And that's because Janky and Googemon take him to the stars, you know,

Speaker 1 and kind of make him cool. So it's really a transitional story as well.
By the way, that was Mercedes' best performing campaign for people under 35 that year.

Speaker 1 So, you know, it's balancing the edge with the audience.

Speaker 4 They did a glam-up of the dog. People loved it.

Speaker 3 Yep.

Speaker 4 Got to have a story there.

Speaker 3 Jennifer, talk to me about Vegas.

Speaker 3 You know, we've talked, you know, before the episode, you know, retails struggle, you know, with what they need to do to bring people back into the stores and keep people, you know, interested in shopping again.

Speaker 3 Talk to me about the vision and what you're doing in Vegas.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So Vegas is really the start of a whole new level or chapter for Super Plastic.

Speaker 1 This idea was incubated about a year ago when we discovered a partner called Area 15 in Las Vegas. And Area 15 is

Speaker 1 I think they have 100 acres of property, about 25 acres are developed into sort of a burning man meets mall experiential location. And it's great because it's just off the strip

Speaker 1 and it is literally an oasis of all these types of different experiential venues that you can go spend time in and engage with.

Speaker 1 And what it became for us was the perfect way for us literally to take our characters and our worlds that were born of social media and bring them to audiences and fans in real life to continue those narratives.

Speaker 1 So we've opened what we call the Dopame Institute for Pleasure Research at Area 15 in Las Vegas, opened a week ago. It is part incredible retail store with our toys as well as with our

Speaker 1 Vegas-specific dopamine specific product. But what it is, is also a ticketed experience that where you become part of the action.

Speaker 1 You become part of Janky and Googlemon's latest scheme, which is to suck your dopamine out and sell it back to you. That is their next get-rich-quick scheme.

Speaker 1 So when you step inside, you are immediately transported to sort of a back alley in Queens, just where we all want to be, right?

Speaker 1 And the, you know, the location is authentic graffiti. It looks like an off-track betting location, if you remember what those look like.
That's sort of where you start. You go into a room that looks,

Speaker 1 then you go into a room that looks like the DMV, even worse.

Speaker 3 And you're like, wait, where am I?

Speaker 1 And all of it is to get you into this scheme of theirs where you are a test subject that they are putting you through different trials for how you elicit dopamine so that they can, you know, quote, capture it and sell it back to you.

Speaker 1 How do you elicit dopamine? Exercise.

Speaker 1 dancing, telling the truth or lying, being creative. So we have different rooms.
And by the way, you go through this experience with a group of friends from start to finish.

Speaker 1 It's kind of all pulsed through. And you end up in this really funny story where you have to do certain physical things to engage with it.
But then

Speaker 1 the scam is revealed in the last room and you end up in the control room where they've been monitoring you the whole time.

Speaker 1 And in that room, we've integrated a whole bunch of cool stuff where you can actually mess with the groups behind you and you realize that the groups in front of you were messing with you.

Speaker 1 It's truly interactive and story-driven.

Speaker 1 And we've even integrated some AI characters where you can talk to our characters for as long as you want. All kinds of different stuff to really bring people into the world.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it sounds fun, number one.
I'm like, you know, it sounds like amusement, amusement ride meets storytelling meets,

Speaker 3 I don't know, animated characters that you love. So it's like, it's a dimensioned escape room, except we let you out, even if you get the puzzle wrong.

Speaker 4 And when we let you out, it's even better. When we let you out or when you come in, it goes right into our flagship retail store, which is available to anybody that goes to Area 15.

Speaker 4 They don't have to get a ticket to Dopame. So we have kind of all of our amazing vinyl art figures from all of our artist collections there.

Speaker 4 We have some dopamine exclusive kind of merchandise, apparel, fun Vegas items, some things that tie into a pleasure research institute that have nothing to do with vinyl art toys.

Speaker 4 So it's a vibe and a whole experience that'll be there. And it's great.

Speaker 4 And we're getting great feedback from, you know, randoms that have known nothing about our brands to those that have been waiting for it to open that have gone out since it's been open to those that have been in town for other events in Vegas, both on the experience and on the retail side.

Speaker 3 Any Easter eggs there with

Speaker 3 surprises?

Speaker 3 Lots.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 You navigate the experience with an RFID wristband in every room

Speaker 1 and you end up finding a whole basket of goodies at the end when you download your wristband.

Speaker 1 You know, the fun part too for us is that Area 15 sees about 3 million people a year walk through their doors. So the overwhelming majority of people that are going to come.

Speaker 1 go through our experience or be in our interactive retail shop

Speaker 1 are new to us, right?

Speaker 1 they may have heard of us but they don't know us um so i think we've achieved that mission again of satisfying the core fans with something really cool and a new adventure but also really indoctrinating those who uh who haven't heard of us yet

Speaker 3 really fun stuff guys where are we headed

Speaker 3 you know sounds like we're living the you know the plan right now with the with the new vegas experience and all that um but you know any uh future plans we can share?

Speaker 1 Absolutely. So look, Variety Magazine called us the next Marvel, Supreme, and Disney combined.
And that's the mission. Billion-dollar platform for the new generation.

Speaker 1 We've got the characters in the universe. We continue to develop more of them.
We have the cool factor of the Supreme brand nature.

Speaker 1 And now, frankly, with the opening of Dopame and the Experiential, it's our first step towards Disney. And those are, you know, $100 billion companies.

Speaker 1 So we see no limit to the IP potential and the ability to continue to engage fans and immerse them

Speaker 1 into the worlds along the way.

Speaker 3 I mean, you know, Disney's a little syrupy for me. So I like demented Disney much better.

Speaker 3 Right? I'm just twisted enough, you know, that this feels.

Speaker 4 It's been one of my strategy decks. We got it.
We're embracing it. Although someone say Disney's already pretty demented, we bring it to a whole new level.

Speaker 3 Maybe. But that's exactly it, right?

Speaker 1 Like, this is not your father's, you know, amusement park. And this is not your father's IP brand.
I mean, and that's the fun of it. We get to create it.

Speaker 1 You know, my experience from the sports business was always working with the best IP on the planet. And the best IP on the planet comes with guidelines and guidebooks this thick.

Speaker 1 Super Plastic doesn't. Super Plastic is a world that we get to create

Speaker 1 you know, what fans want and what we think is

Speaker 1 next on the horizon. And that's the fun of it.

Speaker 3 Yep, it is. And, you know, own you're different and you're doing just that.

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 for sure.

Speaker 3 Hey, guys, where can everybody learn more about dopamine? What you guys are doing, different ways to get in touch with you and the brand.

Speaker 1 So the best way is to go to superplastic.co, CO

Speaker 1 products, dopamine. dopamine uh the other aspects are follow our characters follow us on social we are at janky and googie mon

Speaker 1 on tick tock we are at super plastic on youtube

Speaker 1 and we do have the character channels at janky and at gogemon on instagram but at super plastic on instagram we'll get you there too

Speaker 4 love it and then for dopamine specific uh we just launched at dopamine 702 on instagram for all things from that experience.

Speaker 4 And we'll be pushing a lot of content out there, but you'll see it on all channels. A lot of fun ways to engage.

Speaker 3 It's been fun, guys. Appreciate you coming on.

Speaker 3 We got to get you guys.

Speaker 4 I want to hear what the boys are into and the fam and get this collected story.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'd like to get it. We'll put it up.
You know, I got

Speaker 3 a pretty good following. We'll put some, give you guys some love on there too.

Speaker 4 For those who are watching us, you can tell they're great Zoom backgrounds. You know, for all those listeners at home, podcasts or otherwise.

Speaker 3 I need some sitting.

Speaker 3 Look, I got my props in here. I need some sitting right here.

Speaker 3 You know, I think so.

Speaker 4 What's your finishing move on the wrestling belt?

Speaker 3 Oh, are you kidding me?

Speaker 3 It's the stinger splash.

Speaker 3 Stinger splash.

Speaker 3 Oh, that's old school. You know, that's back in the days of wrestling back in the day.

Speaker 4 But you got to get in your face, the black and white, to do that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. Yes.

Speaker 3 The Scorpion Deathlock, you know, if they really want it, but, you know, we'll see. That was my favorite wrestler growing up.

Speaker 4 So when we do our WWE blind box series, I know where to send you some toys.

Speaker 3 Yes, for sure.

Speaker 3 Hey, guys, you know where to find us. RyanisRight.com.
We'll have all the highlight links to super plastic. Dopameme.
My favorite word of the year, maybe. Here as we close out.

Speaker 3 We appreciate you for making us number one. Go check out the YouTube channel and give these guys some love.
We'll see you next time right about now.

Speaker 2 This has been Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network Production. Visit RyanisRight.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities.

Speaker 2 Thanks for listening.