Celebrating Bioworld's 25th Anniversary
If you’re a fan of basically anything and have merch, then you have heard of Bioworld. They are a merchandising company that has helped countless franchises with their merchandising needs. At New York Comic Con, they celebrated their 25th Anniversary with an industry party, where they partnered with Viz Media. Not only did we get to see some of the merchandise they have made for various anime, such as Bleach, Naruto, and Dandadan, but we also talked to Nicole Gaibrois, who serves as the Director of Brand Management.
CS: Tell us about some of the pieces in here.
Nicole: We're a global company, and we work with, not only anime, but studios like Disney, Warner Brothers, and Marvel. We also have a sports division. What we're doing today is celebrating Bioworld’s 25th anniversary. We partnered with Viz Media, who we've had a great partnership with for almost 10 years.
They have a lot of great IPs that helped build our company along the way. For example, Naruto, of course, a classic anime that generations of people love and newer ones like Dandadan. Years ago, anime used to take many years to build up the fandom and get product introduced to retailer. Having great partners like Hot Topic bring it to market sooner. We're seeing that Gen Z is adopting anime at an earlier time than ever. If you can get product into retail at the same time that the content is airing it is such a win.
CS: What are the pieces that you are showcasing here?
Nicole: What you see here are some of the best sellers over the years. This is the first Naruto shirt that ever went to Walmart and the first item to sell one million units. It's not currently an active style, but it was one of the highlights that launched us into this space – mass production. As you can see, we have a lot of built up product. It’s very important to us to make sure that you have those pieces. It's almost like collector items. When you're a fan of something, you wear it day in and day out. It's got to hold up. It's got to last.
One of the things that's always challenging is people think anime is niche, and it's not. It is one of the most weekly viewed things from Gen Z. 60% of Gen Z watch anime. That's a crazy number. Anime is very unisex. Inside anime, not only do you have sports anime, like Blue Box, but then you have action ones like My Hero Academia. You have Jujutsu Kaisen which leads to the horror customer. Every genre fits into anime, and it's really exciting, something for everyone.
CS: Is there a fandom that you haven’t delved into yet that you’d really love to?
Nicole: We are pop culture nerds. The reason we all work for Bioworld is we are enthusiasts ourselves, so if we're missing something, then we got a problem. There's so much crossover that happens even among the sports and pop culture. There are people like Shohei Ohtani, who's a fan of anime. There are NBA players that are also fans.
Music is probably my first nerdy thing that I loved and enjoyed. I love music because it crosses over every genre and every thing. You watch a movie and you remember that killer soundtrack. Anime music is so important to the overall theming. If we see something that youth culture is into, we want to be a part of it. A lot of our people that work for our company are younger designers too so it's a very organic process. They want to develop and design for something that they're true fans of.
CS: How hard is it to get rights to IPs to make the merch?
Nicole: In the anime space we're very well known. I hope that we are one of the premier partners that most studios would like to work with first. Viz Media is one of our relationships, but we also work with Toei, Toho, Crunchyroll, you name it. The brand managers are really engrossed and passionate about it. We know the titles, and we reach out. Sometimes we reach out first, sometimes they reach out first. It's a very natural relationship. There are certain titles that are more appealing to us and we feel more passionate about. We would love to sign everything in anime, but there's too much content. We are selective in things that we think will have multiple seasons. Sometimes we call it right, and sometimes there might be an IP that's not as strong as another. But if it's something we believe in, we go for it.
Bioworld has established themselves as a company that they [Toei, Toho, etc.] know that we're really supportive of their IPs. And we don’t have just apparel. We cross over many categories of merchandise - backpacks or buttons or pins and patches, lanyards, luggage, etc. We are your premier destination as we can service all those different categories.
CS: Do you have a favorite anime?
Nicole: My current favorite is Dandadan. I love Turbo Granny. It's fun and fresh.
CS: When a new anime comes out, do you look at it and say, is this something that we want to make product for? Or do you wait to see how popular it gets?
Nicole: There are definitely titles that you can tell that there's merchandise behind it. Something like Dandadan for example. Turbo Granny is such a unique like character. It's a standout. We do think about all the different ways we can develop it into product. It looks great on a handbag. It looks great on the backpack. It looks great on a t-shirt. We also think about where we'll work at retail. We work really well with both Hot Topic and BoxLunch. Those guys are destinations for anime. They don't do just the initial big guys, they delve into the full genre. We find things that we know the fans are really going to love. Some titles just happen to have characters that resonate so well, and it works, like Jujutsu Kaisen and Demon Slayer. There are such strong looks in those titles that they are a top performer.