Blue Kangaroo is a design agency that works specifically with entertainment character licensing and toy industry clients all over the world. He is also a Northern Powerhouse Export Champion for the Department of International Trade. Here we find out how 2022 has been for him and get his thoughts for the future.
What’s the biggest thing that has happened in your business this year?
We’ve moved from our Gateshead office to one in the centre of Newcastle. There’s a lot more bustle but we do a lot of work within retail toy licencing industries which means that we’re closer to the retail environment. Business wise, we’ve seen really good growth and we’ve a fabulous team behind Blue Kangaroo.
Tell us about your workload…
It’s as busy as ever and while we haven’t any major new contracts, we are very focused on working with existing clients such as Mattel, the Walt Disney Corporation, and Universal Studios.
You’re one of the most prolific exporters within the creative industries, how do you use your knowledge to help other people export across the world?
I’m an export champion for the Department of International Trade which is something I’m very proud of. It’s nice to be able to give my experience back to people starting their export journeys. I work with a few smaller creative agencies who are on the verge of exporting or have just started out in business and I share my experiences of what we’ve done and how we’ve done it. I’m a great believer in the talent we have in the North East as it’s a hotbed of creativity and we need to spread that globally. When I say creativity, I’m talking about everything from design, copyrighting, PR, IT digital etc.
I mentioned exports, because of that you actually travel the world. How many miles a year do you think you actually travel?
I think before the pandemic I was probably doing over 150,000 miles a year backwards and forwards to the USA and throughout Europe. That’s slowed down quite a lot now as we use Zoom which for me is quite good because I’m scared of flying.
When you walk down a busy street and see one of your designs for a blockbuster movie what goes through your head?
It’s cool. We were talking about this in the office recently because we’re so busy with about 120 projects at any one time – something really small like a social media asset or it can be a large project which can take years so sometimes we see our work on display that we finished years ago.
When you aren’t working what do you do?
I’m a typical business owner and I work regardless of the time. I’ve got three kids, two of them live away from home and I’ve got a wife and a normal day to day life. I watch football especially at the moment with Newcastle doing so well but when I’m at home I like to put my feet up and spend time with my wife doing what she likes to do including being dragged around the Metro Centre.
You’re a great supporter of local charity – tell us about one of your favourites.
I like to visit Café B in Gosforth run by Smile for Life. It’s a café where you can go where all the young people that work in there have various issues that stop them from working full time. I really enjoy going and they’ve got a young chef called James who recently got his apprenticeship sorted but the cost of the knives and his whites were really expensive, so Blue Kangaroo kitted him out. A small thing for us but massive for him.
I always feel uncomfortable talking about charities because for me it’s something that we should be doing as a society and not bragging about it, so we tend not to talk about it.
It’s been a great year for you but what does next year have in store?
I think as a business we’re going to have to learn to adapt because we’re turning a lot of work away at the moment so I’m looking at growing the business which in the current climate is a blessing. I also want to fly the flag for the North East a bit more and telling the world how good we all are at what we do.