Hasbro CEO Lays Out Growth Strategy

Hasbro has set out a goal of increasing its profits by 50 percent over the next three years, unveiling a Blueprint 2.0 strategy focused on direct-to-consumer, gaming, licensing and digital expansion.

The company unveiled the new strategy at its first investor day under the leadership of CEO Chris Cocks. It comes out of a nine-month strategic review of the company’s operations. Blueprint 2.0 calls for a focus on investing in key franchises across toys, games, entertainment and licensing alongside an initiative to deliver $250 million to $300 million in cost savings over the next three years.

“Hasbro has many strengths: amazing brands that span generations, a gaming portfolio second to none, a history of play and entertainment innovation led by some of the best teams in the business, and unwavering corporate citizenship,” said Cocks. Blueprint 2.0, Cocks said, “is core to how we’ll continue to bring our strong brands to life for consumers of all ages, and how we’ll manage the business to monetize our intellectual property, drive investments, deliver profitable growth and create shareholder value.”

Hasbro has said it is planning major investments in direct-to-consumer and digital. The company’s direct platform, anchored by Hasbro Pulse and D&D Beyond, is poised to become a $1 billion business with over 50 million accounts by 2027, up from 20 million today. It will expand its licensing initiatives with new and returning partners. Entertainment investments are set to more than double for Hasbro IP. Boosting its data analytics activities, Hasbro will invest in a Brand Insights Platform.

Speaking specifically about the entertainment strategy, Cocks noted: “Entertainment remains a top priority for Hasbro. Over the last decade, Hasbro branded entertainment has supported over $4 billion in merchandise and licensing revenue. Moving forward, our entertainment investments will become increasingly focused on driving our Blueprint and related merchandise and digital engagement opportunities with a particular focus on franchise brands. Today, we spend a small portion per year in Hasbro branded entertainment primarily in our family brands segment and we see that tripling by 2025 in film and TV as we expand the number of films, scripted and unscripted TV shows supporting major Hasbro brands. We expect revenue in our entertainment segment directly tied to Hasbro brands to grow correspondingly by 2027. For our non-Hasbro-branded initiatives, our strategic review continues. Over the last 18 months we have divested several non-strategic businesses including eOne Music and are evaluating other assets in the portfolio focused on content unrelated to Hasbro’s IP. As part of that process, we are exploring how best to maximize the growth and value of marquis assets like our 10,000-plus asset content library, including premium hits like The Rookie, Yellowjackets, Naked & Afraid and the Mark Gordon library. Our entertainment teams are some of the best in the business, our creative relationships are strong, and our library of content continues to grow in value. As we focus more and more on Hasbro-IP related entertainment, we’re looking forward to delighting audiences of all ages with the start of a banner playlist ranging from Transformers Earth Spark to Play-Doh Squished to D&D Honor Among Thieves.